(Feature address at 20th anniversary luncheon – Henry B Jeffrey, Pegasus Hotel, 28th September, 2014)
I thank Ms Yvonne Hinds and the Guyana Relief Council for inviting me to say a few words on this the 20th anniversary of the organisation.
Two decades after its registration as an non-governmental organisation, the GRC is still here fulfilling its vision of providing nondiscriminatory help to Guyanese when they are most in need. This despite Ms Hinds’ protestations when I first broached the possibility of her managing this institution in 1993! Tenacity and the willingness and capacity to work with others across the social divide are most important if organisations such as these are to flourish. Indeed, in our type of countries, the capacity to cooperate in this manner, is a sine qua non for national prosperity.
After the PPP/C’s victory in 1992, I became Senior Minister of Labour, Human Services and Social Security with Ms Indra Chandrapaul as minister within the ministry. The ministry was responsible for youths, woman, the elderly, cooperatives, social security and the many departments contained in the labour sector. The then National Relief Committee, the forerunner of the Guyana Relief Council, was a department in the ministry’s social security arrangement and was located in Camp Street.
Sometimes social changes tend to appear simple and obvious. But many a times they are based on substantial theoretical and practical expressions that are not easily appreciated. The story of the establishment of the GRC is a small reflection of this contention. It was rooted in the extant conceptual outlook and in practical developments taking place in Guyana. For, strange as it may appear today, with all the political bickering and machinations, there was a general belief that the results of 1992 elections signalled the establishment of an open and broad-based participatory democracy in which civic society would be encouraged to play an independent role.
As it turned out, in a real sense, aspects of the ruling ideology that brought international communism to its knees and the PPP/C to government contributed to the GRC being what it is today. Reaganomics and Thatcherism, which emphasised free markets, privatisation of government assets, and the establishment of arms-length relationships between the executive and those state entities that remained, were at their apogee.
From this standpoint, it was inappropriate for a government ministry to set the policy for state organisations, manage those enterprises and also be responsible for monitoring them. The recommendation was that if state enterprises must remain, the ministry should merely perform a steering function. That is, where it is was thought inappropriate to privatise a state body, the government should set policy and develop benchmarks and indicators to be able to properly monitor those policies. The actual day-to-day management, called the rowing functions, should be the responsibility of corporate state bodies.
Having accepted the strictures of this kind of organisational outlook, it was quite obvious what had to be done with the National Relief Committee. It had no business being a government department and had to be corporatised with a view to its growing into an independent non-governmental organisation.
As you could imagine, in the existing national ideological context, this was easier said than done.
The PPP still claims to be a Marxist/Leninist party and in 1992 it was much more gung-ho about centralised state control. That is, in its capacity to directly manage the state and its enterprises.
Even my friend Indra Chandrapal was not too comfortable with the idea of getting rid of the GRC.
In relation to domestic conditions, the PPP/C came to government in 1992 amidst great expectations for democracy and development. Aspirations soared as many believed that given its vast natural resources and talented people, Guyana would quickly and substantially improve upon its standing as the second poorest country in the Northern Hemisphere. This was not wishful thinking: the economy had begun to emerge from the doldrums of the Burnham period.
Using present World Bank data, GDP growth in 1992 was 7.8% and went as high as 8.8% in 1994. These high levels of growth were to persist until about 1997, at which time Guyana was declared a lower middle income country.
The optimism of those days was visible in the behaviour of the people – in the marketplaces, in the discotheques, in the way people chased after land and housing, and so forth. When, just a few years after the 1992 elections, we returned to places like New Amsterdam and Anna Regina the enthusiasm was palpable. Travelling abroad, one also recognised the belief in a bright future for Guyana. Many people, like Dave Martins, believed that Guyana was coming back.
Of course, the PPP/C could not take all of the praise for this initial positive environment. President Desmond Hoyte had set the stage by somewhat liberalising the state and by adopting the IMF’s economic recovery programme. He was able, much quicker than I thought, to totally reverse the socialist orientated policies of his predecessor. Indeed, a World Bank report of 1994 claimed that Hoyte’s initiative was “a major and fundamental reversal” of previous policies and that “Few countries have moved so far, so fast.”
At the beginning, this policy was ruinous, with massive devaluation severely reducing the spending power of the population, particularly, the most vulnerable. In this sense the GRC came to life in an extremely destitute and crippling environment. However, all these early developments reinforced the belief that the democratic project, for example, the development of a vibrant and autonomous civil society, etc was on track.
Being an old communist, Cheddi Jagan did not like the idea of establishing an NGO when it was first put to him. Nonetheless, he was won over by the organisational logic we discussed; the fact that he had been proposing the strengthening of civil society; and always present in Cheddi’s calculation, when he became convinced that the organisation might find it easier to raise resources if it was not a government department.
Once the ministry decided to create an NGO, the question was who was to manage it. Various suggestions were made, but given her positioning, we decided to ask the wife of the prime minister. I called Ms Hinds and made the suggestion, to which she exclaimed “No. No, sorry Minister, I never ran anything like that!” I tried to persuade but it was clear that I was getting nowhere so Cheddi intervened and the rest is history.
Twenty-two years on, Ms Hinds and the GRC are still here less dependent upon the government than ever. In the early days the ministry gave a subvention, which, notwithstanding the pleadings of the organisation, has not been increased. The government claims that the GRC is raising sufficient funds. Precisely what this means in our poor country, particularly after I consider the total annual expenditure of the organisation, I am not certain.
Therefore, mainly by its own efforts, the GRC has been able to improve its facilities. It now has an emergency shelter that can house 100 persons. There is also a Guyana Relief Council in Florida USA that is making useful contributions to the relief effort. Dozens of businesses, including Neal & Massy, Edward Beharry, GenEquip and Scotia Bank to name a few, and individuals must be congratulated for the material and physical contributions they have made and I hope will continue to make.
Each year the funds raised and goods donated have come to the aid of hundreds of persons made homeless or otherwise distressed by fire, floods or simply bad fortune. The fact that in 2011 the council was awarded our national Medal of Service for the contributions it has made to our society, and particularly the poor and powerless, speaks for itself.
The PPP/C came to government with great expectations and if anyone had told me that two decades on Guyana would still have been the third poorest country in the Northern Hemisphere, I would have thought them extremely pessimistic. If anyone had suggested that the nation would have been suffocating in quarrels concerning democracy, transparency, corruption, etc, I would have doubted their sanity. Unfortunately, that is precisely where we are!
Yet, because of how it was structured and the orientation of Ms Hinds and her council, the GRC has largely been able stay clear of the normal ethno/political charges and counter charges. This is most significant for a distributive organisation in our social context.
I have argued consistently that we are in this poor and problematical condition because the general tendencies of our political system facilitate social/ethnic divisions that allow all-round profligacy and underdevelopment. In my humble opinion, the major task now is to change the way we are governed so that we can all prosper and make the work of organisations such as the Guyana Relief Council much less onerous.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
