Individual elements in relation to policies involving copyright and piracy may appear alluring, but taken together these policies are destructive and have contributed to the de-skilling and de-industrialisation Guyana has experienced, says APNU parliamentarian Carl Greenidge.
The government has come under withering criticism over the past weeks for seeking to procure pirated textbooks for use in schools. This transaction has now been suspended. Government had sought to procure photocopied books for its school distribution programme, but a number of local distributors have since been blocked by a High Court injunction from displaying, selling or producing photocopied books. The injunction was obtained by the United Kingdom’s Publishers Association.
Earlier this month, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon said that the government expects a decision soon from its ongoing engagement with publishers on whether original textbooks can be accessed at a cheaper price.
In a letter published in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek, Greenidge-a former finance minister in the PNC government- said that the government’s strategy is not acceptable or effective. “The explanations and actions of the (Government of Guyana) in relation to the schoolbook controversy are indefensible, if not dangerous, especially because they are part of a de facto and unannounced strategy of putting the interest of cronies above the national interest,” he wrote. “In addition to breaching local laws and international agreements, they conflict with far-from-adequate announced policies on development, music, entertainment, tourism and much else. As with heroic acts in the heyday of maritime piracy, individual elements may appear alluring, but taken together these policies are destructive and have contributed to the obvious de-skilling and de-industrialisation Guyana has experienced in this the 3rd millennium,” Greenidge said.
He asserted that government sponsored photocopying and breaches of the copyright principle have wide implications even for the Government’s other policies. “Guyana is not simply bound by some arcane 1950s laws. Both the PNC and PPP Governments have signed agreements binding us to respect and protect copyright. The problem of the cost of textbooks in general and school books in particular has been addressed at the international level. Over the last 20 years there have been quite significant reforms of the regime often prompted by developing countries,” he said.
Greenidge noted that the option of printing the book locally under an arrangement with the holders of the copyright has been mentioned in the earlier exchanges. Government should have made arrangements to have as many of the needed textbooks as possible written locally, he said. “Although a country as small as Guyana cannot replace all the required books in this way, it can replace many. Writing and printing the books locally has the advantage of making them more relevant in terms of context and it would generate more high level skills, employment and income, through a multiplier effect,” the APNU parliamentarian said.
He said that another option is to develop and implement meaningful policies on intellectual property and innovation capacity along with clear, complementary policies including: the development of human capital and entrepreneurial education; investment in research and development (R&D); and improvement of the environment for doing business.
“In summary, consistent and comprehensive policies are required to help solve the unaffordable textbook issue. The photocopying of books helps some persons in the short term. In the long term it helps not the pupils of poor households but the businesses to whom the illegal contracts are awarded. At the end of the pupils’ school lives such jobs as may be found in an efficient printing industry would not be available to the school leavers. The industry would have been destroyed by the photocopiers.
We have no better example of the pernicious impact of this type of government policy than the policy-induced demise of the once mighty ship-builders, GNEC (Sprostons) and the disappearance of its workshops and foundries from GT, Bartica and New Amsterdam,” Greenidge declared.
