There can now be little doubt that, insofar as the favoured regional venue for the hosting of events that have to do with the development of the Caribbean is concerned, Guyana has become the unquestioned focus of regional attention. Over the past few weeks, alone, Georgetown has been well-and-truly ‘weighed down’ by the comings and goings of a succession of visitors from the Caribbean, South America, North America and Africa, all of these concerned with regional, hemispheric and global issues, the choice of the country’s much less than convivial capital, Georgetown, a function of the global attention that the country’s oil wealth has attracted. Much of what will happen in terms of both the development of the region and the strengthening of its socio-economic ties where the rest of the world is concerned, will revolve around the goings-to and comings from Guyana’s capital.
Georgetown’s overall jaded, its overall cramped appearance, its pockets of eye sores and its frequent and outrageous traffic snarls renders it not even close to being the region’s standout capital and while the obvious indications of initiatives seemingly in the direction of an urban makeover give rise to a feeling that – as Guyanese are wont to say – ‘tings gun change’, the gingerliness of the pace of change and what frequently are the inconveniences that attend the transformation undertaking gives rise to an assortment of ill-informed timelines for the ‘new look’ which, it seems, is being attempted. Still, the country’s petro fortune trumps the state of the capital in terms of a ‘pull’ factor and among the visitors there appears to be a preparedness to ‘grin and bear’ the humbugs and eyesores in what is its decided lack of appearance and its decided lack of the various appurtenances associated with hosting distinguished guests. That said, a petro fortune and the potential enormous business opportunities that it has opened up for both local and foreign fortune seekers has been sufficient to persuade the visitors to ‘grin and bear it.’
Over the past several weeks, Georgetown has already been considerably ‘weighed down’ by a succession of regional, hemispheric and international gatherings on an assortment of business and investment-related issues to which we can anticipate a further surge of follow-ups. Those have got to be dealt with in good time to make room for the capital to be once again host what is likely to be a no less demanding July 10-12 Caribbean Investment Forum that will bring some of the region’s high profile government officials and well-heeled Caribbean business magnates to the country. The visitors will be coming to a capital that has, by now, already been thoroughly drilled in the procedures associated with the hosting of such events, but which, even now, is in the midst of effecting a painfully slow and disruptive effort to ‘limp along’. In July, doubtless, it will almost certainly be more of the same in a capital which, long before the country’s wave of attention came, had long began to crumble under the weight of protracted official neglect. In the absence of the requisite recovery time which, were such available, might have ‘eased us’ more comfortably into the demands of planning and executing a succession of high-profile regional international gatherings, we have had to hastily slip into what one might call a ‘make do’ undertaking, an functional option in an embarrassing sort of way. Not a few analysts of the ‘double time’ response that Guyana has had to ‘serve up’, on account of the painfully short ‘lead time’ between the country’s ‘world class’ oil find and its transformation into what has become one of the world’s leading magnets for international investors, have recognized and articulated the irony of a blessing that is decidedly ‘mixed.’ It has brought with it a mix of ‘feel good,’ on the one hand, and on the other, the overbearing responsibility of having to rise to meet a challenge for which, truth be told, there had not been the luxury of a great deal of ‘lead time.’
What had been clear from the start of the ongoing ‘journey’ is that the oil-find euphoria of around eight years ago is yet to be matched by a corresponding preparedness to take the process forward. Indeed, there are those who would argue that in a number of critical respects, our oil tsunami has caught us with our ‘pants down’ though it would surely be altogether counterproductive to begin a whose-fault-it-is discourse here. Indeed, there are those who would argue that apart from having caught us altogether ‘off guard,’ our ‘world class’ oil find and the responsibility to ‘make it count’ has found us lacking in ‘what it takes’ to ‘get out of the blocks’ as quickly and as smoothly as ought to have been the case. It had literally been the case of placing a decidedly hybrid ‘animal’ in a field of thoroughbreds. So that rather than the event of 2015 being attended by anything even remotely resembling a ‘flying start,’ it has been attended by obstacles that include a decided lack of the right prior ‘conditioning’ for the demands of such an undertaking. The problem here, of course, is that there are no ‘false starts’ and ‘recalls’ that allow for a re-setting of the process once you have ‘left the blocks.’
