Dear Editor
Few things are more destructive for national development than the refusal to change. To be stuck in the past is not only counterproductive in terms of economic growth, but also harmful to human security. When a nation is on the move, it is necessary that influential opinion-makers abandon their ideological fixations and open their minds to new ways of doing things. It is in this context that someone like Mr. Eusi Kwayana should resist casting everything in the language of neo-colonialism. Mr. Kwayana’s claim that foreign investors’ attitude to Guyana “…is no different from that of Otto Von Bismark and other colonial raiders at the Berlin conference in 1884 when they declared themselves free to exploit the resources of the African continent….” will no doubt have resonance with a handful of development skeptics, or those that are so ideologically penetrated, that they think we are still living under British rule.
I encourage Mr. Kwayana to use his talents to review the available data on foreign direct investments in Guyana, and to think of the accumulated injuries in those bad old days when no one wanted to invest here. You may recall Sir, we were put in IMF receivership, and the Guyanese people were left staggering-about this land bereft of food, jobs, and hope. Let us look at the data. At a press conference this past Wednesday President Ali noted that in just the past two years our GDP expanded two trillion dollars from $1.1 trillion to $3.1 trillion. Mr. Kwayana should avail himself to the comparative data for Caribbean and other smaller economies. I know growth rate is frowned upon because growth does not equate to development. But I also know that no growth means no development.
FDI increased by 55000% (fifty-five thousand per cent) in Guyana between 1990 and 2022. Here are some relevant GDP growth rates for 2021/2022 (no necessary order). Suriname 1.9%; Trinidad & Tobago 2.5%; Honduras 4.0%; Dominican Republic 4.9%; Jamaica 4.2%; El Salvador 2.6%; Ecuador 2.9%; Barbados 10.0%; Guyana 57.4%. Mr. Kwayana and colleagues may be interested in the time-series data on our per capita GDP. The table below makes the point quite graphically (Source: World Bank). In 2014 our per capita GDP was US$ 5659; in 2020 it moved to US$9126; and by 2022 it leapt to US$17,044. There are challenges with using composite data to underwrite claims of economic and social progress. I agree that data are like raw materials and that writers can become very innovative with statistics. Yet, even if we allow with a generous fluctuation band of injudicious use, these raw data do indicate step-level improvements.
The country, simply put, is heading in the right direction so much so that no one needs to bend the numbers into desired directions. The data are quite independent and transparent and speak for themselves. Finally, at some point those of us who do critical political economy, and especially those that incorporate race and racism into our empirical and theoretical analyses, must avail ourselves to the positive outcomes that our own pedagogical activism, combined with the street level struggles by the masses, have produced. To disregard the real changes that have taken place in the global order is an act of self-devaluation. Let us be bold enough to take some credit for the resistance and counterhegemonic praxis that generations have fought for. Let us acknowledge that Bandung was more than words.
Sincerely,
Dr. Randolph Persaud
