Dear Editor,
According to a BBC news item, Morocco is focused on renewable energy production. It plans to generate 42% of its power needs by 2020. That is a mere four years hence. Singapore at one time generated tens of thousands of engineers annually to meet a certain national and economic vision.
What is the vision here in poor, undeveloped Guyana? What should be part of the vision for ourselves? What can we be, given what we have got?
I suggest a focus on becoming a prodigious call centre hub. Our people speak with acceptable clarity (at least those with unvarnished intonations and diction). It will call for education, training, and the right investment climate. But with an exchange rate of 200:1 (and counting) this locale is an unmatched profit centre for those overseas players seriously involved in this type of business. Our projection ought to be anywhere from between 25,000 to 50,000 employed in this sector within 3-5 years. It is doable.
Another avenue of opportunity is delivery on the talk of being the breadbasket of the region. The thinking and talking have both been continuous. Now is the time to leap from hazy, occasional, disconnected strands of thought to comprehensive blueprint first, and then the schematics of implementation. It is time to translate and transform potential into solid meaningful reality. There are lands, there are bodies, and there are raw skills. Money, prioritization, and will are needed. It has been nice to say before, but it will need some autocratic force to get the job done now.
There can be considerable ‘feeder skills’ and trickledown effects that accrue to this nation. All it has to do is decide where it wants to go, what it wants to be, set itself targets, and then pursue them with implacable resolve.
How to market and leverage? How to align diplomacy, relationships, funding, and requisite pools of skills, infrastructure, interests, and energies? How to cohere (heard that one before too) as a nation to get from here to there, wherever that is?
Others might emphasize eco-tourism or renewables. I say that whatever it is that is viable and rewarding, let us go for it. Like Morocco. Aim high, think big, and then follow through with a passion.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
