Dear Editor,
Where is the visionary thinking in the Government of Guyana’s much-celebrated purchase of an electric car? This paucity of cognitive ability in the Granger administration is worrisome in extremis. The supercilious fuss over the purchase of a vehicle whose target market is the climate zealous housewife in America and which has no tangible benefit to Guyana exposes the shallowness of thought and action in the administration. It is not that Guyana cannot go ‘green’ but first we must think, plan and be capable of executing the plan.
All Guyanese know that there is a massive shortfall of supply in our electrical grid. How would the addition of vehicles requiring electricity affect the already dire situation? There has to be abundant, cheap electrical supply to consider the move towards electric vehicles. Should that energy come from diesel, natural gas or hydro is where we start the conversation. Then we can move to our involvement with electric cars; do we buy them at exorbitant prices as we did with this over-priced microwave bought by the GEA? Or do we think like a developed nation and explore the possibility of developing our vehicle, assembling someone else’s or some other manufacturing solution. Those incapable of thinking big should get out of government and get back to pushing whatever paper they were before 2015.
Guyana has produced vehicles in the past; the ‘Tapir’ was an aluminum-bodied vehicle and some are still with us plying the taxi trade in the Skeldon area. Should we want to think ahead, cheap hydro or natural gas power opens the possibility of an aluminum smelter plant in Linden; with that, aluminum body electric cars, all designed and built for the local and international markets becomes a distinct possibility. The ‘Jaguar’ moniker is taken, but the ‘Electric eel’ is available. Our possibilities as a nation lie within our minds and our grasp. We can think, innovate and build our own or go with the Granger lot and buy electric Nissans. We had 55 billion reasons not to vote for Granger, now we have 55 billion and one. The choice is yours on 2nd March 2020.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Singh
