Dear Editor,
Baldeo Persaud boldly advances the argument that the problems of Africa, generally, are due to corrupt leadership. While no one can and should dispute that corruption in several African nations is endemic as it is elsewhere, Mr Persaud’s broad statement is similar to many that are made in a local rag masquerading as a newspaper. They are unable or unwilling to separate bad or deficient parts from the whole in their inverse proportional compulsion to label and stereotype.
In Transparency International Corruption Index for 2007, with a 2.6 rating, Guyana trails every Commonwealth Caribbean nation, as well as several African nations such as Uganda, Burkina Faso and Swaziland. Based on Mr Persaud’s conclusions on the causative factors for Africa’s economic and social predicament, I wonder if he is prepared to make logical assumptions about the state of Guyana given these findings. Or if he will, as is standard when inconvenient truths poke at the facade of sycophancy, retreat into the usual mode of rejecting that which does not feed into myths and cunningly contrived notions.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
