Dismissing the impact of two consecutive years of challenges associated with the coronavirus pandemic and putting behind them the even more protracted official neglect that continues to confront hinterland communities, the residents of Lethem and its satellite communities, last weekend rolled up their proverbial sleeves to deliver what the Mayor of the Rupununi and Interim Chairman of the Rodeo Committee, John Macedo, told the Stabroek Business was “the biggest Rupununi Rodeo ever.”
What was, perhaps, even more significant was that the Rupununi showpiece was delivered following a planning and execution period of around four weeks and that around 90% of the sponsorship for the staging of the event was delivered by the local business community. “I am proud of the businesses in Region Nine, Macedo told the Stabroek Business.
Interim Chairman for Rodeo 2022
During a telephone interview with the Stabroek Business on Wednesday Macedo said that the Rupununi businessmen and women had “come up with the majority of the $10 million required for the execution of the event. “With just four weeks to plan and execute the Rodeo it was impossible to look for $10 million in sponsorship outside of Lethem and Region Nine. We reached out to the business community and the business community stood up,” Macedo told the Stabroek Business.
He said that the remaining 10% of the amount required to plan and execute the event had come from government and from other stakeholders on the coast.
Macedo told the Stabroek Business that the Rupununi Rodeo, this year, as in previous years, had not only provided an economic stimulus for the region but had also served to lift the spirits of a community that had had to endure the debilitating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic for the previous two years.
Assessing the success of the Rodeo event in economic terms Macedo said that apart from the wider economic impact of the presence of the more than fifteen thousand visitors who had travelled to Lethem for the Rodeo “all of the hotels and Guest Houses were filled…The craft people, the restaurants all did good business and every sector of the economy benefited.
The Mayor said that the community was grateful to both the contributors from the community as well as the Government of Guyana for their respective contributions to making the Rodeo a success.
At the Rodeo event itself Richard Peters of the Wichabai Ranch was crowned Rodeo King, 2022 after carting off the top prizes in both the Saddle Bronco and Bareback Bronco competitions. Peters’ victory this year meant that he retained the crown which he won back in 2019.
Apart from the twelve Rupununi ranches that participated in this year’s Rodeo, the event also hosted Vaqueros from Brazil.
Macedo told the Stabroek Business that this year’s Rodeo is generally considered to have been the biggest ever.
Setting aside the modest economic stimulus which he said the Rodeo had provided Macedo told the Stabroek Business that the event might also have served to provide an important stimulus for emotional recovery from the pandemic. He said that while the initial onset of the pandemic back in 2020 had witnessed widespread community compliance with the strictures, as time went by discipline had given way to frustration and businessmen, particularly, had begun to voice their concern over the pressures of bills’ payments that had fallen behind. Some business owners, he said, had been forced to make “tough decisions, including, in some instances, the strategic rotation of staff in order to ensure that all of the families involved retained access to earnings. In some instances businesses were closed for more than a year. Afterwards, the closing of the border with Brazil had rendered what had already been a bad situation even worse since Brazilians had accounted for the majority of the patronage of shops at Lethem.
The intervention of the Region Nine business community and the municipality to salvage the Rodeo had been rendered necessary after the Covid-19-related strictures had presented challenges to the fund-raising pursuits of the Rupununi Livestock Producers Association (RLPA) a non-profit organization established in the late 1970’s by a group of ranchers and which had long been responsible for the planning and execution of the Rodeo.
