By Karen Abrams, MBA IT Consultant
As Guyana’s sugar, bauxite and rice industries continue to struggle under the weight of competition and global pricing pressures, our local economy and therefore citizens will continue to feel the direct hit as less revenue is available to pay for improved government services and development projects. Less revenue means that there can be no massive undertaking of projects to fix roads, water, schools, healthcare or any of the larger projects that can have an impact on job creation or quality of life improvements for our citizens, without significantly adding to our national debt.
History has made it clear that Guyana must diversify her economy and in addition to oil production, must prepare her young people to provide goods and services for the rest of the world, using the tools of technology. Citizens of Guyana must take the strategic position that never again must Guyana be overwhelmingly dependent on any one industry for her future economic development. Those young people who have no institutional memory of this lesson in Guyana only need look to our neighbour Venezuela to observe the consequence of national dependence on one industry.