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What are the real curses?

From page 6

have to rely on barrels from abroad for their very survival!

Now to the outlandish description of sugar, rice, bauxite, gold, diamonds and timber as “curses”. Even if the President did not write his own speech, he has a post-graduate degree in history and must know that some of those very curses have sustained the country since the mid-seventeenth century.

Of course there were horrible evils attendant with some of those sectors but certainly not all, and equally certainly, the opportunities for correction were many. Perhaps historian Granger might wish to explain why his idol Mr Forbes Burnham did not rid Guyana of these “curses” when he controlled Guyana with an iron fist.

Maybe Mr Granger has never paid attention to his Caribbean counterparts who even before the discovery of oil envied Guyana’s natural endowment as blessings which have spawned the sectors which he now deems “curses”. Maybe he is over-excited at the prospect of oil and wants it to replace his “curses”. Mr Granger’s statement is the textbook definition of the real oil curse.

Those “curses” provide our economy with growth, foreign exchange and taxes, and our people with employment and spending power.

Think what will happen to some of the communities if gold, diamond and bauxite mining – which account for close to 20% of GDP and a significant share of the workforce ‒ were to be relegated to Guyana’s economic dustbin of history. Rice and sugar may account for only 8.6% but they do account for significant foreign exchange earnings and substantial numbers of the workforce.

Had the President described the sectors as having challenges, he would have been stating the obvious. But curses, certainly not.

I close by respectfully suggesting to Mr Granger what I think the real curses of Guyana have been since Independence, which in many cases, are being perpetuated and in some, getting worse:

• abuse of power and corruption for gain for selves, friends and supporters, aided by lack of transparency and accountability;

• racism and racial discrimination in employment and economic opportunities;

• ignorance and incompetence in the understanding and performance of one’s office or job and appointing square pegs in wrong holes;

• dictatorial and authoritarian practices, including manipulating the elections machinery, rigging, disregard for the Constitution and constitutional offices and the law, and the insertion of the military in civilian administration;

• nepotism and cronyism with preference for one’s own; and

• insensitivity and arrogance, the belief that those in power know it all and others are unimportant.

An honest and truthful ticking of the boxes by the Granger administration will not only be revealing: it can rid Guyana of many of its real curses.

Yours faithfully, Christopher Ram