Dear Editor,
In a recent letter, Ramesh Gampat explained in plain English why it is a ‘fantasy’ to say that Guyanese are rich because of oil. After removing oil from economic calculations, Dr. Gampat showed that ‘Of the 33 countries in the Americas for which data are available, there were 17 countries with per capita income larger than Guyana’s in 2023. In other words, Guyanese remain some of the poorest people in the Americas. Income per person in Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis was 2.4 times as large as Guyana’s, while Trinidad’s was twice as large. Per capita income in Brazil and Grenada was larger than Guyana’s, while that of Jamaica and Suriname was around two-third of Guyana’s. The enormous difference between income per person based on total and non-oil GDP exposes what I call the “Fantasy Gap” or the perception of wealth, which began from around 2019 and grows larger yearly’ (https://www.stabroeknews.com/2024/11/12/opinion/letters/the-idea-that-guyanese-are-rich-is-an-erroneous-arithmetical-idea/).
Dr. Cheddi Jagan addressed the reality of poverty in his writings and speeches. In the following excerpt from his State Paper delivered to the National Assembly on 26 January 1994, we can see that Dr Jagan did not subscribe to the handouts’ mentality, one that positions the citizen as a mendicant or supplicant. Instead, he envisioned a future of self-reliant citizens: ‘The means by which resources are allocated so as to achieve these ends [a broad-based and sustainable development agenda] must be determined through appropriate roles for the state, private and cooperative sectors and the strategic alliance between them. In other words, we are ultimately more concerned with the realization of our creative potential, the strengthening of self-reliance, the eradication of poverty and protection of the environment, rather than with handouts to relieve poverty’ (Guyana: The government’s vision of development. https://jagan.org/CJ%20Articles/President/Images/4202.pdf).
The present and all future governments would do well to take Dr. Jagan’s vision to heart. Bharrat Jagdeo did not become Senior Minister for Finance until 1995 so he may have missed the 1994 State Paper. However, as coordinator of the development of the National Development Strategy, Bharrat Jagdeo knew of Cheddi Jagan’s opposition to handouts, restated on page 4 of the terms of reference for technical working groups, issued by the Ministry of Finance dated 08 June 1995 (https://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1188.pdf ). I do not recall any repudiation by now-Vice-President Jagdeo of the Jagan philosophy.
Sincerely,
Janette Bulkan