The quiet revolution ignited by David Granger

Oct 26, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – I have to admit, I’ve been thinking a lot about plantain chips lately. And not because I have some exotic culinary fetish, though I wouldn’t rule that out entirely. No, it’s because of this quiet revolution in Guyana’s small business sector, which, ironically, has the country’s major political parties tangled up in a sort of delicious irony. It’s like watching two neurotic siblings’ squabble over the same slice of cake, only to realize one of them baked it, decades ago.

Former President David Granger, a man not usually associated with flamboyant entrepreneurship, once suggested that Guyanese citizens could make plantain chips. Yes, plantain chips. He proposed that ordinary people could not just survive, but thrive, by taking a humble plantain, slicing it thin, frying it, and packaging it for sale.

The suggestion was not, I should stress, a desperate act of economic survival. There was no hint of panic. No tragic urgency. Just a simple idea: empower people to be self-employed.

Granger was planting the seed of self-employment. This is what he said, “The possibilities of employment with the Government are limited but the possibilities of self-employment are unlimited. When you ask what are the job opportunities and about the brain drain, I tell you that you don’t have to run and leave because this is the land of promise and opportunities. Young people must learn to go out and create jobs and there are so many possibilities…you see people with these big laundry baskets selling plantain chips. That is business, don’t laugh at them,”

Naturally, this idea was met with laughter and ridicule by the PPPC, which seemed to regard the notion of plantain-chip entrepreneurship with the same skepticism one reserves for a street magician promising to make your wallet disappear.

“Really?” they seemed to say. One could almost hear the faint laughter echoing through the corridors of power, as if the concept were preposterous, avant-garde, or perhaps both.

But now, here is where the comedy of modern politics gets deliciously ironic. PPPC Ministers are touring small-scale plantain chip factories which the PPPC government established. The former critics have discovered, as all true sceptics eventually do, that sometimes the hare wins the race while the tortoise is still checking its sneakers.

What Granger initiated was more than just a single culinary fad. It was a subtle, creeping revolution in small business development. All across Guyana, people are making and selling tamarind balls, plantain chips, beauty products, and food items so meticulously packaged you’d swear someone had taught them industrial design in a covert night class.

I know individuals with full-time jobs who moonlight as micro-entrepreneurs, peddling delicacies at their workplaces, supplementing incomes, and quietly undermining the notion that financial stability requires a single paycheck.

And it doesn’t stop at food. The revolution has spilled into cosmetics, beverages, fragrances, candles, spices—small-scale manufacturing sprouting in every conceivable corner. Women sell juices and water coconuts in sealed bottles with labels that would make a boutique proud.

Food shops have mushroomed across towns, in neighbourhoods you would not expect, with pastries and artisanal snacks now occupying public squares once reserved for political rallies. It’s like someone hit “upgrade” on the country’s entrepreneurial software while the politicians were busy arguing over whose idea it really was.

Yet here is the most amusing part. The PPPC’s idea of supporting small business seems to be to create a development bank. Yes, a bank. Because obviously, the path to economic empowerment is through paperwork, not frying plantains. Meanwhile, the small-scale food industry, the actual engine of self-reliance, is humming along, informal yet increasingly sophisticated, quietly proving that Granger’s vision wasn’t naive. It was prophetic. It was, dare I say, clever.

So, while the politicians squabble, the people innovate. The tiny factories and home kitchens are incubators of hope and practicality, creating employment, generating income, and quietly transforming everyday Guyanese lives.

Ordinary citizens, armed with a frying pan and some plastic packaging, are redefining opportunity. And the original instigator, David Granger, is now watching from afar, the irony as sweet as the caramelized edges of a perfectly fried plantain chip.

It is, in a sense, a reminder that life, like politics, is absurd. But sometimes the absurdity works in your favour. Sometimes, the joke that everyone laughed at turns out to be the punchline that actually works.

And while ministers tour facilities and nod politely at what was once mockery, the real revolution—quiet, persistent, delicious—continues, unbothered by political applause or critique.

If nothing else, this teaches us a valuable lesson. It tells us to never underestimate the power of a small idea, even one as seemingly trivial as slicing a plantain and frying it. Because sometimes, small ideas have a way of changing the world. Or at least the local economy. And perhaps, in the end, that is the sweetest irony of all.

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

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• APNU, David Granger, Peeping Tom, PPPC, Revolution

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