A government without a plan

Jan 10, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – A few photographs appeared on social media showing the President, the Prime Minister, Bharrat Jagdeo and the Senior Minister with responsibility for Finance. They were in a huddle and seemingly in a discussion, but all eyes were on Bharrat Jagdeo.

A caption to the photograph quoted the President as saying that the team spent considerable time working on building out the model to support the immediate, medium-term and long-term development and designing a careful and considerate approach to meet the aspirations of the people.

This came as a surprise since one hardly expects such a narrow team to be involved in such an ambitious planning exercise. It was presumed, in some quarters, that the discussion of the ‘Magnificent Four’ may have had to do with the tabling of the Annual Budget.

All the smoke signals pointed in this direction. There has been a blitz of activity involving projects in recent days. A number of contract-signing ceremonies took place and from the fanfare associated with these events, it was clear that the government was establishing the tempo for the Budget.

However, the interest of the public was piqued by the caption that the government was developing a model for Guyana’s short to long-term development. It was always assumed that the government was pursuing a neo-liberal model with expectations of a trickle-down effect to the population. Soon after, things got more interesting when the President took to a video statement on social media. In that statement, he began by saying he wanted to explain to the public the model of development that his government was using to transform Guyana and to bring prosperity to every home. For the next twenty minutes, the President seems to have forgotten the purpose of his address. He spent almost all of that period talking mostly about projects without revealing the model from which his government plans, policies and projects will arise. Nothing further has been said about the model.

A government’s policies, plans, and projects should consistently be anchored in a model of development for several compelling reasons. Firstly, a clear and well-defined development model serves as a guiding framework, providing a cohesive vision that aligns diverse policies toward common goals, ensuring consistency and efficiency in implementation. Secondly, having such a model allows citizens to comprehend the ideological basis of its plans. Thirdly, having a development model facilitates long-term planning. Fourthly, it allows for the measurement or evaluation of the extent to which governments plans, policies and programme are consistent with the model.

Even if the PPP/C government was ashamed that it has strayed from the working class policies of Cheddi Jagan, it could have embraced a social market economy. This model combines free-market principles with social policies to achieve both economic efficiency and social equity. It also seeks to balance private sector development with social responsibility.

But as stated before in this column, the government is not following any national development strategy and this gives its leaders leverage to initiate projects and plans as they see fit, including without any feasibility or other impact studies.

A recent response to critiques regarding the lack of a depletion policy saw the Vice President offering a concept statement on petroleum extraction. However, a declaration of intent to maximize oil production swiftly does not constitute a depletion policy. A National Depletion Policy must encompass a spectrum of essential elements including reserve estimation and assessment, production limits and targets.

As an article on Oil Now pointed out, these elements have implications for the quantity of acreages that will be put up for exploration and production, the level of investment that will be required.

When Malaysia developed its National Depletion Policy, it placed limits on oil extraction so as to safeguard its reserves. As such, it put a cap on oil production to extend the life of production.

Guyana’s depletion policy is unwritten. It is in somebody’s head. And because it is unwritten, it gives full licence to the oil companies to dictate the rate of production and exploration. The government has little say in how much is invested, and on exploration and production decisions.

The absence of a formal National Depletion Policy raises concerns about the sustainability of the country’s natural resource management.  There is also a pressing need for a comprehensive, written policy that delineates clear guidelines and objectives for the judicious extraction of finite resources, such as oil and gas, even if the plan is to extract as much as possible and as quickly as possible in the shortest possible time.

As for the official model of economic development, we most likely will have to wait on the government to make sense of the nonsense it is doing before such a model is announced.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, Government, Peeping Tom, President, Prime Minister

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