Every so often one comes upon a set of events that underline both the possibilities and the tragedy that is Guyana. Four such factors inspire this column: (1) The first objective of the Guyana National Service that was established in 1973; (2) the recent ‘historical’ signing of some 200 hundred contracts for infrastructure works in housing estates. (3) the notion that resource-rich countries require transformational planning; and (4) the nonsensical quarrel between the government and the opposition over the legitimacy of the former.
At present the government is spending huge sums on infrastructure associated with keeping the sea from inundating the coast and making life impossible for the 90% of the population that lives there. Added to this, it is well established that climate change and particularly rising sea levels pose an existential threat to the coast most likely making it uninhabitable in a few decades. In this context, the first objective of the Guyana National Service was to ‘Equip Guyanese with the knowledge and experience for opening up, developing and living on the rich lands available in our hinterland.’ This commitment, included moving the capital from Georgetown to Matthews Ridge in Region 7, was visionary. I doubt that in the early 1970s climate change was a major determinant of Forbes Burnham’s calculations but big thinking was not unusual in that era and our neighbour Brazil had long before begun to move their capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia located in the centre of the country. Generational security and development was then the main objective but today, when the situation has become far more precarious and resources are likely to be available, a serious discourse and possible consensus about retrenching from the coastland is badly required.
Governments in Guyana have not yet grasped that to make the best of Guyana’s wealth they have to think and plan generationally and make political concessions that will allow them to do so. For example, quite apart from the important managerial issues raised in ‘Gov’t signs $14b in contracts for infrastructure, housing’ (SN: 17/03/2021), it is a safe bet that the roads that will be paid for by what that paper called a whopping $14b to be spent on 200 contracts will not be in a proper state three years after completion much less for a generation! The government, faced with an election petitions that could lead to early elections, is attempting to prove that it can do much more than its predecessor in the shortest possible time. Generational thinking, planning and building take time but the competitive nature of politics in a deeply divided Guyana does not offer much space for that.
Resource-rich countries have usually good opportunities to become sustainably prosperous for the present and future generations. But this is not the automatic result of receiving and spending large inflows of monies on larger quantities of projects. ‘If citizens are concerned about the welfare of their children they must recognize that future generations have a right to benefit from resource extraction and to be shielded from its inevitable negative impacts’, and this depends on transformational planning, coordination and oversight of the development process. A transformation strategy must take the long view because ‘the extraction process can last many generations, decisions made in the present must be robust to the cycles of government changes’ (Future Notes, SN: 08/05/2021).
The experience of Germany, which is the most developed and reputably the best managed economy in Europe, suggests that successful long-term development depends upon consistent economic decisions being made repeatedly over decades; so there have to be laws, rules and guidelines that are consistently followed over the same period. But having the rules is not enough: they must be supplemented by properly designed and effective institutions staffed by extremely skilled persons. But the ‘magic ingredient’ – the real power that defends the rules; ensure that they are undated and enforced – ‘is the existence of a critical mass of citizens who understand that the rules must be kept and are willing to use what authority they have to ensure that they are kept.’
Thus, the transformational planning requires ‘inclusive processes that are open and participatory’. Decision-makers should incorporate the inputs of other stakeholders, ranging from government departments, parliament, citizens directly affected by extraction, civil society, the extractive companies and private sector in general. These groups can help in providing the necessary understanding of issues that must be addressed in the planning process. But importantly, one will also be establishing that critical mass of informed citizens outside the executive, as guardians of the strategy, playing a scrutinizing role by holding decision-makers to account’ (Ibid).
Yet, with all this knowledge available the regime has orchestrated a senseless quarrel with the opposition about its legitimacy that forces one to conclude that it simply does not want to talk to the opposition. The president is reported as saying that the government is willing to speak when the opposition accepts that it was ‘legitimately-elected’. While it may be wrong to say that the government is illegal, the opposition cannot logically say that it is legitimate. Indeed, no one should expect it to say so when it was advised by all and sundry, including the pinnacle court, to use the process of an election petition to prosecute its contention that that the 2020 general and regional elections were rigged. Simply put, legitimacy is not the same as legality, the former is rooted in subjective notions of ‘justice’ and it is commonplace that all lawful acts are not considered ‘just’.
However, the regime is correct to be concerned about its legitimacy because national reconciliation, generational development, consensus building, etc., ‘require visionary political leadership that has a unifying quality’ and such ‘leadership must be rooted in a sense of legitimacy, rather than simply authority’ (https://li.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Breaking-the-cycle-of-violence.pdf). Government legitimacy has long been problematical in Guyana and by constitutional and other means, should be solved but presently there are important issues that should be discussed; bearing in mind that the ultimate alternatives are parley or conflict.
There is much poverty and an existential threat and there are logical and prosperous ways out for the present and future generations. A sensible approach requires the kind of national consensus and skills base that has been largely absent from Guyana but has now been made worse by the frequency of regime change coupled to the culling and debilitation of the technocracy after each election. And now the situation is compounded by the foolish quarrel about legitimacy. At a more meaningful level, the latter is unsolvable in the present constitutional context where regime legitimacy only exists when ‘my’ ethnic group is in government. In a quite comprehensive manner, unilaterally capturing executive political power is trumping the interest of the present and future generations.
