Dear Editor,
The new government should start to work immediately, avoiding the temptation of losing time by being dragged into peripheral and emotive non-rational concerns. It should try to proceed along the line of continuity and business as usual. This would imply allowing the administrative arm of government to function as it has been and not changing any task or personnel except some permanent secretaries and ministerial secretaries. The private sector must be left absolutely alone without disturbance. The over-exuberance of supporters must be curbed as such alienates.
If such is done, governance becomes easier, more acceptable and legitimate. This is standard political theory.
The three projects of national importance should be proceeded with and we should not try to reinvent the wheel. The hydropower project Amaila would cheapen electricity, and help in achieving an industrial revolution making Guyanese products more competitive locally and overseas. The Specialty Hospital would save many lives providing facilities which are only available overseas. As important, it would allow older members of the diaspora who desire to return to Guyana to do so, since world-class medical services would be available for them as in the developed countries. These people would bring their capital and their foreign pensions, and as such the hospital would be a foreign exchange earner. Airport modernisation would cause airfares to fall since there will be more airlines and more competition, and it would be an earner of money since Guyana, from its situation at the top of South America, would be the stop-over hub for planes going from North to South America and vice versa, and from North America to Africa. All three programmes would pay for themselves and create jobs.
Constitutional reforms should be an immediate priority. Such reforms should return to the system we had and which the anglophone Caribbean shares. In such reforms, regional local governments should be strengthened giving the regions financial and developmental autonomy. The central government should have the role of supervising the regional local governments, the currency, defence, foreign affairs and the ports, including the airport. The central government should also be responsible for the capital city of Georgetown.
The new government should immediately address the question of corruption in a quiet, constructive way. This would include cutting out the bribery of officials in various government departments such as the registries, and immediately keeping a rein on all the ministers. The ministers should immediately be made to publicly declare their assets. Such a declaration must be done within three months. This would curb the temptation of ministers enriching themselves from public funds or taking kickbacks. This is an urgent priority.
There are credible reports that numbers of people on learning that APNU+AFC had succeeded to the government, began squatting on government and private lands and invading the turnkey houses the Ministry of Housing had built at a cost of scores of millions of dollars. The new government must immediately put a stop to this attempted theft of state property and the lawlessness accompanying it. Government would then exhibit to all Guyana that it is strong and not weak, is capable of maintaining law and order and is focused on eliminating criminality.
With honest will and dedication, the new government could achieve these impacting activities in less than six months.
Yours faithfully,
R Drakes
