Dear Editor,
In response to the question asked by David Yhann’s letter, in SN on our golden jubilee, on how to grow Guyana’s population, I have a more direct answer (‘What is the best model to increase Guyana’s population?’).
We must stop driving Guyanese into emigration. I’ve seen a figure of 20,000 per year; that’s twenty thousand of our brightest and best, whom we cannot afford to lose. Every year we become ever more a nation of dregs, left-behinds who can’t make it in more advanced countries.
How do we stop the talent drain? First, by reducing corruption in governance, top to bottom. Bring justice, not just hot air, to those proven corrupt, past, present and future. Secondly, increase opportunities for productive employment based on our comparative advantages. Embrace modern methods of agricultural production and value-added processing, in new high-value crops for growing export markets.
Both easier said than done, but not rocket science, unless our decision-makers are only after an easy job for high material reward. Therefore, above all, we must elect leaders who are open to new ideas, not preoccupied with their own hollow dignity and closed-minded prestige.
How to find such leaders, given the present party political system? The history of which makes for such bitter meditation amid the empty jubilation.
Yours faithfully,
Gordon Forte