Dear Editor,
Throughout our fifty-five (55) years of independence, Guyana’s political system and its economic structure have not been positively transformed to achieve a significant level of national unity and overcome jobless growth and persistent poverty. Guyana has one of the highest poverty rates (43.4 percent of the population) in Latin America and the Caribbean. Today, most Guyanese, at home and in the diaspora, are very concerned that Guyana will become ‘infected’ with the oil ‘Dutch Disease’ where corrupt practices will enable the enrichment of a small elite of some business people and some middle class politicians and professionals from the Indian, African, Mixed, Amerindian, Portuguese, Chinese and European ethnic communities. In effect, there are ‘worries’ that, based on the experiences of most oil-producing countries, there will be no significant improvement in the standard of living for Guyanese workers, farmers, the poor and vulnerable households across all ethnic communities. To prevent such a human rights disaster, it is absolutely essential that we the people improve governance by transforming power relationships in the political, financial, economic and social systems.
Good governance is not only about improving government institutions to better serve and deliver goods and services to the population. Just as important, it also about how civil society organizations (non-governmental groups, community organizations, trade unions and private sector organizations) will improve their participation in decision-making at the national, regional and local levels. Therefore, it is everybody’s business and responsibility to transform governance in Parliament, Ministries, public agencies, Regional Democratic Councils, City and Town Councils, Neighbourhood Democratic Councils, Amerindian Village Councils, community and non-governmental organizations, financial institutions, trade unions and businesses. Improving governance will not come easily or without risks. But, if governance is not transformed, we will be unable to overcome the greatest threat to the existence of our economy, society and environment, that is, the rising sea and river levels, floods, droughts and the destruction of mangroves. Guyana will be unable to successfully build national unity and to equally and fairly provide quality education, health and social services in all ethnic communities. We would lack the strength to resist future pandemics and defend our land territory and the mineral and marine resources in the Exclusive Economic Zone.
Comparing governance across countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Guyana’s performance is relatively low on indicators such as the effectiveness of government, the rule of law, the control of corruption, citizen involvement and participation, the prevalence of violence and the quality of public institutions. The immediate governance priority has to be the transformation of civil service institutions into more professional, transparent and accountable agencies that would facilitate, regulate and implement policies free of corruption. If citizens are not confident and supportive of the civil service, the national, and regional and local governments will be unable to achieve good political, financial, economic and social governance. To achieve good political governance, we the people will have to transform the challenges and problems into opportunities for making real changes to end the monopolization of political power based on ‘winner-takes-all’ governments; to strengthen the involvement of civil society organizations; to consult regularly with grassroots communities for determining, based on data collection and analysis, their immediate, medium and long-term needs, and for agreement on the exact order of how public investment projects will be implemented in infrastructure, business support, education, health and other social programmes; and to distribute equally and fairly oil revenues and other government funds in all ethnic communities and regions.
To achieve good financial governance, we the people will have to transform the challenges and problems into opportunities for making real changes to strengthen the public financial management system so that politicians, business people and all other citizens will understand that there are annual limits to how much and how fast public revenues can efficiently and effectively be spent in the public sector and absorbed by the economy; to create employment programs, cash transfers and subsidies that are affordable and sustainable; to avoid borrowing from the future sales of oil; to minimize grand and petty corruption; to implement policies for low inflation, a competitive exchange rate and low taxes; to attract, retain and motivate public sector employees with better wages and incentives; to ensure that the private sector is not ‘crowded out’ from access to financing and labour by the public sector; to be fully transparent on public debt; and to effectively manage the oil funds for present and future generations by avoiding ill-conceived investments (‘white elephants’) and unsustainable expenditures.
To achieve good economic governance, we the people will have to transform challenges and problems into opportunities for making real changes to develop a national master plan with a diversity of competitive economic sectors in a private-sector-driven economy; to improve the environment for doing business with a ‘level-playing-field’ for fair and equal competition; to develop renewable energy sources; and to expand value-added exports in current and new markets.
To achieve good social governance, we the people will have to transform challenges and problems into opportunities making real changes to decrease the very high death rate of women giving birth (229 deaths per 100,000 women), the very high suicide rate of young men and the high mortality rate of infants in rural areas, and, in the hinterland areas, to end the stunted growth of children; to close the gender wage gap where women earn 15.7% less than men for work of equal value; to ensure that women equally participate in the economy and politics; and to implement job-training and employment programs for each economic sector because the working-age population is increasing and the oil and gas industry will only employ 4.6% of the labour force by 2025. To achieve good political, financial, economic and social governance, Guyanese, from all ethnic communities and regions, will have to promote and support female, youth and male leaders who are courageous and committed to transforming challenges and problems into opportunities for making Guyana a better place.
Sincerely,
Geoff Da Silva
