Dear Editor,
Throughout 2016 we have submitted letters which, cumulatively, sought to make the case that countries thrive under certain conditions: including establishment of a just and open society; fostering an environment that generates opportunity; a strong national foundation in mathematics and science as a precondition for fabricating things; and accumulated capacities in science and private enterprise as essential weapons for gaining economic strength.
The first condition rests overwhelmingly on a country’s entire corpus of norms; the distribution and responsible use of power; and more particularly, on the capacity and will to enforce rules consistently but fairly. Rules enforcement requires ongoing investment in skilled manpower, maintaining institutional capacity and developing new competencies and capabilities. This is an area where Guyana continues to struggle.
The second, generating opportunities, is perhaps the most difficult to initiate and sustain because of the interplay among international and domestic circumstances, including economic and non-economic factors. We have pointed out previously that after 43 years Guyana failed to make meaningful progress towards economic diversification.
We argued that consequential diversification cannot succeed without broad political consensus on a strategy, programme, guaranteed resources, and follow through implementation, irrespective which party forms the government, and yet, an effective diversification programme is precisely what may be needed in order to unlock economic opportunity throughout the country.
We also believe that national transformation is associated with the quality and rate of urbanisation. Urban development raises productivity because a complex of sectors are involved in real economic activity, including several categories of construction such as housing, industrial and commercial property development, physical infrastructure including communication networks; and utilities etc., all of which requires manufacturing and services. Unfortunately, Guyana’s urbanisation efforts during the past 40 years have been heavily politicised, focusing on housing to concentrate votes, rather than a development orientation.
New urban centres contributes more, however, given Guyana’s small and stunted population, upgrading existing urban centres is useful investment in times of constrained economic growth.
The third condition is the quality of human capital. Education generally is good; however, the primary issue is the interrelationship between human capital development and the intended trajectory of national development.
During this year Guyanese lamented perceived retrogression of the contribution of manufacturing in national development. In addition, a letter in Stabroek News by Sean Ori, dated 7 December 2016, complained that President Granger encouraged young people to pursue entrepreneurship but that they do not have the resources and skills.
If Guyana’s ambition is to develop a successful manufacturing sector it must invest heavily in mathematics and science education, and these are also relevant to opportunity identification. This means sustained investment over many years into the future. The recent reference by the Minister of Finance to Guyana’s “depressing performance” ( KN 30 November 2016) based on results of the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) and the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), suggests that the country’s educational effort is faltering in critical areas.
With regards to new entrepreneurial activity the President must continue to make the case whenever he has the opportunity to discuss economic development of the country, if only because there is no sustainable alternative to growing a business class. Further, we believe that entrepreneurial activity is not really about a shortage of entrepreneurial talent and resources. Rather, it requires fostering a business oriented culture; opportunity identification and a facilitating business environment.
Finally, President Granger‘s case to young people must communicate the idea that entrepreneurship is not unique to particular people. It is a lifetime choice and alternative to wage- earning. However, he needs to do all he can while he is President to help create the conditions for fostering new entrepreneurship to become a normal choice in a reshaped cultural architecture, and ensure the facilitating conditions exist to enable exploitation of identified opportunities.
The Guyanese political class does not have a stellar record of delivering on promises made, itself a product of a broken adversarial politics and lack of political consensus on major, long-range strategic matters. More troubling is that the political class seems incapable of solving problems which then become intractable. In Guyana, the reliable supply of electricity is a good example. Further, there appears to be a deficit of viable strategies and absence of will to implement those devised.
At least one component of the current wave of so-called populism is due to frustration among populations, arising from failure of the political class to deliver promises, especially relating to employment, financial security, income inequality and ultimately the rate of improvement in average standards of living. People are simply exhausted with endless politicking, while waiting from one election cycle to the next for concrete results.
Continued failure to deliver means mounting discontent and political and social tension in Guyana as is the case elsewhere in the world.
Yours faithfully,
Ivor Carryl
