Feasibility, COIs and conferences

Sep 10, 2024 Letters

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Dear Editor,

The APNU/AFC should be proud of the new dimension to socio-economic development which they ‘delivered’. They were successful in delivering a developmental formula made up of feasibility studies, white papers, Commission of Inquiries, and ‘consultations’ via conferences.

They wanted this Nation to believe that these alone are sufficient to propel socio-economic growth in an upward trajectory having spent hundreds of millions from the Treasury. Once again these Parties want the Guyanese to swallow this rubbish. As the saying goes, ‘Words without action are meaningless’.

The APNU/AFC is a specialist in feasibility studies, they even were contemplating doing a ‘feasibility study’ before doing a feasibility study, hiring a feasibility expert and pay him a hefty fee to determine the need for such a study. These studies were aimed at convincing the public that the ‘good life’ is being delivered. The question was ‘feasible’ to whom? Since these feasibility studies consumed hundreds of millions. It is not difficult to know who benefitted. In case of any doubt then just ask the previous Public Infrastructure Minister. It would seem that the first 5 years were just to do the feasibility studies. The next 5 years would have been the ‘action term’.

Now that the AFC has a ‘brand new’ leader, suit and all, the nation is once again made to endure the cacophonic reverberation of feasibility studies, conferences, consultations, ‘knocking on doors’, and presenting empty haversacks. The reality is that at first the studies appeared to be intellectually correct, being garlanded with a plethora of illuminating benefits which the Guyanese people will enjoy such as improving their standards of living, lowering the cost of living and injecting millions into their pockets. Guyanese will not fall for this again. The lead actor has changed but the script remains unchanged.

The ‘white paper’ the Coalition presented on sugar not only guillotined the sugar industry but the lives of 7,000 workers and their families. Yet the AFC and the APNU still brag and boast that they were correct in ‘right sizing’ the sugar industry. The objective of the Coalition was clear: freezing wages in the sugar industry, freezing capital investments and aborting meaningful rehabilitation of plant and equipment in the field and factory, the stage was set not only to close the Wales, Enmore, Skeldon and Rose Hall estates which they did but to shutter the entire industry. They were uncaring about the dire socio-economic consequences. Seven thousand sugar workers were given the ‘white paper’ and kicked out with no recourse to any alternative means of livelihood. They became mendicants overnight, some committed suicide, some migrated and thousands of their children faced a life of poverty, for the first time, some barely making it to school on empty stomachs, dressed in rags, whilst the Coalition Ministers enjoyed their humongous salaries and benefit increases and their children became the Richie Riches of Guyana.

The Commission of Inquiry into the sugar industry preceded the closing of the four sugar estates and it recommended the non-closure of the Industry among others which actually saw the industry being made viable by 2025. Why would a ‘caring’ government set up such an inquiry, spend millions, and then throw it in the garbage bin? The COI was just more money for the boys and ‘proof’ that the Coalition ‘cares’ about sugar.

Then there were the conferences-Rice Farmers Conference, Rice Millers Conference, Cane Workers Conference, Cane Farmers Conference, the Women Conference, the Youth Conference and the list goes on. The Coalition loves an audience to sell dreams. In the end, rice was deemed to be private business and the sugar industry a ‘black hole’, and sugar workers were deemed ‘raiders’ of the Treasury. Youths were told to manufacture and sell cook-up rice and plantain chips and stop drinking Guinness at street corners. Any competent government will be cognizant of what needs to be done even before taking office since it keeps track of what is happening in the country and comes up with concrete plans to govern in order to guarantee progress. The APNU/AFC always sounds vacuous and hollow. This can be contrasted with the PPP/C whose micro and macro policies are always realistic and achievable and on assuming Office they hit the ground running and began delivering on their manifesto with great alacrity.

In conclusion, the APNU/AFC delivered more to friends, families, and themselves than to this nation, and feasibility studies, COIs and conferences were mere sham meant to fool and deceive the nation.

Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf

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• delivered, studies, The APNU/AFC, the Treasury, white papers

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