Travelling around the hinterland talking to Guyanese inspires a great belief in the future of this nation.
The landscape looks so spectacular, whether in a small plane from Ogle with an aerial view, or speeding through those calm, deep brown rivers of the hinterland communities, or cruising the coasts with windows wide open with the fresh breeze massaging the skin.
What an absolutely lovely land. I live in Canada, and after travelling this country over the past couple weeks, I would choose Guyana any day.
Except that the people I talkedto who live all across this lovely landscape feel their life suffers from poor leadership at the State level. Close to a million Guyanese live overseas because their nation suffers from poor leadership. They desperately want to see their country move ahead under good governance. It’s not that the country lacks good leaders. In fact, looking at local communities through the eyes of a journalist, I sought to identify the root of what’s wrong with our nation.
And what comes up repeatedly is anger against too much power in one man’s hands. People want the powers of the Executive Presidency abolished.
Folks complain that the President has sole power to grant leases of state lands to citizens, for example. Business owners complain that the President carries out vendettas, with full Constitutional immunity.
The party in government promised Guyanese on their tours of diaspora communities, and in the 1992 elections campaign, that the first and urgent action they committed to was to abolish the powers of an executive president.
People complain that the government never kept this crucial commitment. The freely and fairly elected government’s failure to liberalize the State media and open up the radio airwaves, also depress people.
Why, without natural disasters, with such abundant natural beauty, and fertile land and clean rivers and with outspoken leaders of good conscience and moral uprightness, does this nation still suffer as a less-developed nation on the world stage, after two decades?
One reason stands out crystal clear in the minds of dozens of people I spoke with across this country: the President labels independent thinkers and professionals such as Christopher Ram, as “opposition”. People say that if you don’t agree with the President, then you are an opposition member.
I travelled through Bartica, Moruca, Mabaruma, Port Kaituma, Berbice, Anna Regina and Charity in Essequibo, and everywhere people complain that the Presidential powers pose the biggest problem. A re-migrant Guyanese in Leonora, who is a successful business entrepreneur in New York owning a multi-million dollar business, wept when he talked about how the President and certain Ministers of the government stifled his development initiatives in his homeland, Leonora.
I asked Khemraj Ramjattan, Moses Nagamootoo, Raphael Trotman and Richard Van West Charles as they moved out in communities talking to people, why people complain about this issue so much.
They all serve this country as lawyers and Parliamentarians. Trotman, Ramjattan, Nagamootoo, and medical doctor Van West Charles all said that their primary goal is to see the powers of the Presidency abolished. That’s what people want them to do. That’s what people told me they suffer from. People know their plight, and they have the solution.
I have reached out to government Ministers and not one of them expressed dismay that people suffer from this today, 19 years after the promise. And the Presidential candidate of the ruling party stupidly pledged on the campaign trail to “continue” with the old way of doing things.
The problem we face in these national elections is simple: the government needs to be answerable to the people who elect it to power. Everywhere people complain about the lack of local government elections over the past 17 years. Everywhere people complain about lack of access to State media resources. Everywhere people complain that the President and Ministers act like they own the country, making people feel they are helpless to manage themselves.
People like Ramjattan, Trotman, Van West Charles and Nagamootoo said that these complaints from people are real. They all said it’s the reason they quit their old parties to work in a rival party, and their goal is to transform the political culture of the land. So we are not hopelessly lost. There are leaders who work tirelessly, willing to do what it takes. In that, the country is blessed. In that, the nation stands strong, because once people care and sacrificially work to get the job done, there is hope.
In that hope, many across the land express optimism.
We have to come as a nation to realize that we lack leadership skills. And so leaders of all persuasion and background must learn to embrace each other and work together to solve the vacuum that pulls this nation towards the abyss of a depressed general populace.
The Guyana Chronicle once slandered me with a label of bias, calling me “opposition” because as a writer I seek to play a role in generating sound leadership for the country. All I do is look for what would work to improve what’s wrong with our nation, and write about it. So I have personal experience of the government’s arrogance and stupidity in how it sees the role of its citizens. People complain that they constantly make suggestions to their local council, to ministers and to government officials, and they feel they are always shut out.
Amerindians in Moruca complained that the council serves its own interests and ignore residents’ pleas, with State contracts granted to relatives of a powerful figure. One labourer employed at the council said he wasn’t paid for two months.
At Mabaruma and the 18th century-looking American wild west town of Port Kaituma, people said they have given up on government. In their minds they see anarchy, with government far removed from making a contribution to their lives.
With mining such a massive part of the economy, it is a grave paradox that the town is so miserable. These mining companies are large multinationals, but no provision was made in the mining agreements for local community development as an offshoot of the business deal.
The beauty of Guyana is heart-breaking, given that the people suffer from this one thing – too much power in the hands of the Comrade President.
