Dear Editor,
In a SN letter of Oct 25, Nowrang Persaud, a human resources development expert seemed to be in agreement with the views expressed by Prime Minister Hinds in his SN letter of Oct 23 that in order to improve the lives of Guyanese, attention must be focused on improving the low production, productivity, quality and competitiveness of Guyanese organisations/industries.
In his letter, PM Hinds in his usual vague way did not offer the means and methods as to how Guyanese organisations/industries could be more productive and therefore improve the living standards of their workers. However, Mr. Persaud has suggested that in order to achieve PM Hinds’ proposed focused attention to bring about improvements, there has to be a shift in the strategic re-orientation and re-direction of the country’s graduates in management, engineering, science and technology to satisfy the requirements for those proposed changes without giving any detail as to how this could be achieved. However, Guyanese cannot expect an increase in their standard of living for distribution, re-distribution or otherwise unless the economy grows to create jobs and unfortunately the PPP Govt has no strategic plan to do so except to extol such far-fetched projects as electricity from Amaila Falls hydropower and ethanol from sugar cane.
No significant growth to the economy can be expected unless there is substantial investment in the country’s industries and basic infrastructures such as providing a reliable and dependable source of electricity without regular blackouts, modernized port facilities to handle and accommodate deeper draft ships to provide cheaper freight charges, roads without innumerable potholes to reduce hauling times and maintenance costs, a good drainage system to prevent yearly flood damage and potable water availability to wean the use of expensive bottled water. Also, Globalization is making the world technologically more complex and unless there is an educated and trained work force available in specific areas to meet the needs of corporations willing to operate here very few will be attracted to these shores to create the jobs so necessary for development.
Finally, good management is essential for the successful operation of any organization/industry but Prime Minister Hinds is oblivious to this imperative as the PPP Government only selects supporters and party hacks to key management positions in organisations/industries it controls as well as to its inner circle where key policy decisions are made to govern the country irrespective of their competency, qualifications, training and work experience. Hence many of Guyana’s best and brightest are excluded from those favoured positions/places PM Hinds has written about, where their knowledge and experience can make a difference, because of their political convictions. This is evident at GPL, Guysuco, GWI and NICIL all failed PPP Govt (socialistic) entities while Banks DIH and DDL (capitalistic) companies prosper because of their management competency and not due to their socialistic or capitalistic philosophy as PM Hinds would want us believe since Guyoil, a socialist company is profitable because it has good management in place. Alcan and Bookers were successful companies not so much because of their capitalistic commitment and substantial attention to technical training and human resource development of the locals they employed but because they were well managed to achieve set objectives. The increased employment of locals instead of expatriates during their sunset years of operation no doubt increased their profitability as well as it enabled them to adapt to the changing political environment of the time.
Yours faithfully,
Charles Sohan
