Dear Editor,
On Thursday, May 26, 1966, British Guiana became Guyana as Britain officially ended its centuries of colonial rule over our indigenous peoples whom they met on arrival, the African slaves, and indentured servants whom they shipped into the country, and other foreigners who arrived freely.
Although I was a seven-going-on-eight in the bauxite mining community called Mackenzie, I can still recall the solemnity of the British Union Jack being lowered and the Golden Arrowhead being raised, followed by days of colourful displays of our flag adorning streets and buildings, and being waved with exuberance by many. It was a momentous celebration that seemed like it would go on forever.
On that same date, the Lyndon B. Johnson United States government recognized Guyana’s independence by establishing the US Embassy in Georgetown. I deliberately interject this sagacious development because time has since shown Britain simply passed the baton to the United States, whose ubiquitous presence in Guyana’s politics would become unmistakable.
Could this even begin to explain why the United States today is home to the largest number of Guyanese who migrated since Guyana attained political independence? Depending on your source, there can be anywhere around 332,052 Guyanese in the United States, with anywhere between 116,000 and 140,000 in New York alone. Canada reportedly has over 90,000 while Britain has over 40,000, the Netherlands over 14,000 and Suriname over 11,000.
Simply put, with Guyana’s current population at 800,000, it is safe to say that over half of Guyana is living abroad. So, what exactly are we doing as a nation when we call a gathering of Guyanese to observe or celebrate Guyana’s political independence with only half the nation at home? What does political independence really mean to Guyanese anywhere? Did our political leaders of the 40s and 50s misread the political tea leaves in their quest for political independence? Did our indigenous peoples and ‘imported ancestors’ – slaves and indentured servants – lose their lives in vain?
Someone sent me a WhatsApp video of Guyana’s Consul General in New York hoisting our Golden Arrowhead while standing next to the New York City Mayor and a small gathering of onlookers, and those searching questions I asked above raced through my mind. But it is the presence of the United States Embassy in Guyana, observing its 58th anniversary in Guyana while we simultaneously observe 58 years of political independence that towers over both evaluative questions and their elicited answers.
In the 1980 US presidential election, the late US President Ronald Reagan once asked Americas, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” It was said to be a defining moment because he was asking Americans to evaluate the performance of the incumbent President James ‘Jimmy’ Carter. With Guyana’s massive oil find, thanks to oil giant, ExxonMobil and its partners, Guyana has reportedly received more than US$4.2 billion dollars since 2019, and the obvious question to Guyanese at home today is whether they are better off than four years ago.
American pundits had dubbed Reagan’s trickle-down economic policies as ‘Reaganomics’, which had its pros and cons, and the question for Guyanese at home is valid if we are to fairly to determine whether they are feeling any trickle-down effects of what some could describe as ‘Jagedonomics’, and especially as the PPP gets ready for the 2025 elections. Are they satisfied with the status quo or do they see the need for a more vibrant economic vision?
We do know that the United States Government has a keen economic interest in Guyana, as was revealed by the recent military flyovers and the last Ambassador whose remark about ‘contract sanctity’ spoke volumes in defence of the 2016 ExxonMobil contract. But who is going to speak up for Guyana to ensure we get a better or bigger share of oil proceeds? Can Guyanese ever count on the United States to look out for both its interests and Guyana’s interests?
America did not open its embassy the same day we became an independent nation without a long-term reason, and while we take measured comfort in having a US military presence to serve as a deterrent to Venezuela’s cross border sabre-rattling, ordinary Guyanese need to see the needle move past economic survival to economic success in a land with less than a million people.
The International Monetary Fund predicted last December that Guyana’s oil fund will hit the US$11 billion mark by 2028, but then Bloomberg made a sobering observation on February 15, 2024, ‘ExxonMobil struck oil off the coast of Guyana in 2015, transforming the nation’s economy. But as financial tides shift, many Guyanese are left with only rising costs of living and meager wages.” Clearly, most Guyanese interviewed in Stabroek News’ ‘cost of living’ series can relate to this report.
Against that backdrop, if all Guyanese abroad – over half a million – decide to return to Guyana, can the Guyana economy survive the influx? This is where a true visionary leader would have the answer, because true visionaries think broad as opposed to narrow. They readily recognize the valuable role of highly professional human resources in transformational development because performance trumps politics. Sadly, in Guyana, with various projects being offered and executed, politics trumps performance, and quantity trumps quality. There is no real sense of accountability and transparency. One man knows everything, and square pegs placed in round holes get rewarded.
I close by saying that, as both Guyana and the United States Embassy in Georgetown observe their respective anniversaries on the same date, we can take comfort in the fact that the same America that undermined Cheddi Jagan for ideological reasons, opened its doors via the US Embassy and became home to many supporters of both Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham.
But after 60 years, it is time for Guyana, with billions in oil money flowing into the treasury, and with over 330,000 Guyanese living in America, to start moving aggressively with an incentive-based regime to attract overseas-based Guyanese with the qualifications and skillset to achieve true across-the-board transformational development. And transformational development is what Guyana needs, not costly and poorly executed projects.
To achieve this, Guyana needs a new visionary, and 2025 offers Guyanese yet another opportunity to think outside the box. There are Guyanese, in and out of Guyana, who can deliver better, and still bring our people together. Can the US play a lead role in Guyana’s transformational development?
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
