A few weeks ago, in accordance with its commitment made under the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), Guyana published its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), stating how it was prepared to help to prevent the climate change disaster that is likely to engulf humankind unless we immediately take more radical action to protect the earth’s resources and utilise them more carefully (Gov’t identifies three priority sites for hydro -ignores Amaila.
What President Granger recently referred to as the “extraordinary and abnormal” presence of Venezuelan troops on Guyana’s border and the Venezuelan government’s flagrant incursions into Guyana’s territory with maritime presence in the Cuyuni river, when added to Venezuela’s decades’ long harassment, which has stymied Guyana and particularly the Essequibo region’s development, are clear indicators of the level of intimidation our larger neighbour is prepared to reach in pursuit of its spurious territorial claim.
Negotiation is quite a unique process: it is well known that calling for, engaging in and even completing negotiations does not mean that one or both parties wants them to be successful.
If the leaders of the opposition, Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, and his close associates have stolen even half the amount of public funds they are alleged to have, they would have had the good sense to employ some of the best minds in the world to hide it.
We became accustomed to the PPP/C government not caring much about the distinction that should exist between politicians and public – particularly top public – servants.
In the history of quarrels about borders, the Guyana situation appears quite unusual in that one state is trying to overthrow an arbitral award that has stood for over a century.
When told that the Venezuelans were likely to seriously press their territorial claim to Guyana, Cheddi Jagan is said to have brushed the possibility aside, claiming that, ‘the Venezuelans are our friends’.
On 3rd December 2014, as Guyana and Venezuela were still wrangling over Venezuela’s audacious entry into Guyana’s territorial waters, the towing away of the seismic survey ship the RV Teknik Perdana and the arresting and charging of some of its crew, thousands of miles away, the portrait of Friedrich Fromhold de Martens (1845-1909), whose alleged activities stand at the heart of the modern border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela, appeared on a stamp of the Russian Republic in recognition of his contributions in the field of international law.
In this series on the education sector I have so far been attempting to draw attention to some basic beliefs that are bound to affect our theorising a way forward.
A 2010 McKinsey follow-up study, ‘How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better’ made the obvious but yet noteworthy point that improvements in the education system are possible from any level of development.
A path breaking study by McKinsey & Company for the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) repeated what has now become received wisdom: ‘The capacity of countries … to compete in the global knowledge economy increasingly depends on whether they can meet a fast-growing demand for high-level skills.
As the Minister of Public Health Dr. George Norton completes his fact-finding walkabout, sooner or later he will have to put to us some holistic organisational solutions to the problems in the health sector as he envisages them.
While facilitating a necessary changing of the political guards, in terms of creating the level of national cooperation that is required if Guyana is really to take off, the recent elections have not provided the minimum of what was expected.
