Overview
Confucius had a lenient view of intellectual property theft. To steal a book was an “elegant offence” He admitted that he “transmitted” but did not “create” new knowledge. We have presented publicly the elements of the infrastructure plan to develop Guyana’s vast lands and sometimes see our government slowly taking portions of it and attempting to implement.
We want the government to take the best of the best plans that have been developed and implement the selected projects and programmes. They don’t need to feel inferior because they did not first develop or present any specific proposal. The government needs to really accept that all the persons who have superb ideas about Guyana’s development are not in the government. We need that culture to change within our political landscape. In this context we can say that the AFC has a blueprint for Guyana’s development ready to go and to be implemented.
Our blueprint rejects the controlled and slow-paced development of the PPP. In slow-paced development a specific class benefits immediately while the masses must be obedient and accept crumbs over the decades. The people are expected to be subservient and grateful for crumbs. On the other hand, the AFC’s blueprint prefers to liberate the economic space regardless of the political views and aspirations of the investor. We do not believe in nurturing a specific type of like-minded political investors. However, let me clarify what we mean by “liberalise the economic space.” It does not imply uncontrolled market fundamentalism as there is coordination, information and market failure. Furthermore, the latter compounds the ethnic insecurities. The state therefore must play a fair, clever and efficient role to pursue general and selective industrial policies in which any private investor, regardless of political views, is allowed to participate without fear of expropriation of profits through bribes.
The name is the brand
We need Guyana to be acknowledged as the Green Anchor of the region. We have proposed this concept for many years and hope our inexperienced agriculture minister takes some notes from our plans and regardless whether or not his government first proposed it, work on branding Guyana in that light. This would have a tremendously positive impact on Guyana’s agricultural sector and would create the opportunity for Guyana to open its vast rural lands to expand its exports to markets Brazil has already created. The El Nino crisis validated the lack of pre-planning on our irrigation system in times like this and just blaming Mother Nature alone will not make our farming community better.
We also need to determine the capacity of both Guyanese producers and the market infrastructure to support this transition to non-traditional agricultural production specifically for the export market. In addition, Guyana has to assert its territorial integrity because of what needs to be done in relation to developing modern agriculture in the hinterland reaches of the country. Controlling our borders is also necessary because it is quite possible based on available information that we have oil and gas resources that are believed to be greater than that of Trinidad and Tobago.
As I mentioned in last week’s column, we need to give directly to citizens a proportion of any revenues going to the Government of Guyana from a Guyanese oil industry if that comes to pass. Over the next few years, Guyana will become an increasingly more important country as several key issues of global and regional import take centre stage especially the geo-politics of water. This could prove to be vital in the very near future as changing political landscapes and the demand for depleting natural resources brings Western and Eastern countries to South America. With a strategic plan in place and ready to answer the call of the world, Guyana’s opportunities could finally be realised if government of the country is visionary and open minded to the best ideas, regardless of their origin.
The road ahead
What lies ahead for our young country? What road will we take next? I don’t want to get off the subject of the road to Brazil as yet in my columns until it is done. The reason is the vast possibilities ahead of us if we can just move this project along faster. In addition to the road to Brazil we must in parallel be developing our deep water harbour in the Essequibo. Imagine a free trade zone at Hog Island along with the deep water harbour: huge opportunities for investment by both foreign and Guyanese companies. Just imagine the possibilities! This is the future taking shape in Guyana in the hearts of the people.
The Minister of Tourism said last week that the trail to Lethem is the best it has been and he was so proud, but couldn’t once say that it will be better when it is paved. Many more would attend the rodeo if it was. Obviously also there would be more commercial traffic as well. The Tourism Minister’s vision is as limited as his Labour Minister colleague who in this information and knowledge era wants to legally reduce the education possibilities for our children by reducing the legal age when children can accept paid employment.
Conclusion
The Confucian perspective raises a touchy point with the PPP/C government, mainly the fact that they are afraid to implement the right plans for our country if they do not originate within their Central Committee. It is not okay for them to do that; they can improve, even claim ownership, but they can’t just simply ignore plans and programmes that would lead to the sustainable development of our nation. We need jobs, jobs and jobs. Get over the fact that good initiatives might not all be coming out of the PPP and get on with the business of running our country to the betterment of all our people. As a futuristic movie once put it: “Roads! Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. We just need people made of the right stuff”. Until next week “Roop” Send comments to peter.ramsaroop@gmail.com
