Part 1 - Construction and the infrastructure gap
What construction entails
Construction can be described as the activities required to form and assemble materials and components to make infrastructure products, fixed to the land, with such products to be utilised in the place where constructed, by the society and human community as a whole. In this series of articles, “infrastructure” and “construction” in Guyana will be used interchangeably, as will “built environment.”
What are its boundaries?
The UN International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) delineates economic activities according to similarities in the character of the output of goods and services, the uses to which the output is put, and the inputs, process and technology of production. Its delineation of “construction” covers an extensive range of activities, including the construction of dwellings, office buildings, stores and other public and utility buildings, farm buildings, etc., and civil engineering works, such as highways and streets, bridges, airfields, harbours and other water projects, irrigation systems, sewerage systems, industrial facilities, pipelines and electric lines. Extensive as it is, this classification excludes real estate construction for renting, which should surely be an anomaly for counties like Guyana, where such construction should be keenly identified and is highly desirable, at least at affordable rents.
The Bureau of Statistics in Guyana uses the UN classification, with appropriate amendments. However, there are also special European, British and American equivalents, so that the delineation of “construction” is flexible.
What construction entails
Invariably, infrastructure is “fixed to the land,” and involves movement of earth and insertion of a substructure rooted in the sub-soil; once so fixed, it becomes an immoveable part of the land and takes on attributes of land. In due course, we will see why this is significant, for land is a source of wealth, and power. Characteristically, infrastructure is a durable end-product, being constructed of inherently durable material, like stone, steel or timber. Temporary buildings can sometimes serve for a generation, and many symbolic monuments are designed somewhat ambitiously to last indefinitely; examples of the latter are the slave uprising monuments in Georgetown and the Indian Arrival Monument in Corentyne. The useful life of general construction is somewhere in-between these two extremes, and can be expected to be upward of two generations. This durability must be noted, as the output of construction can impact the lives of several generations.
Historian Dr Winston McGowan, in ‘A Survey of Guyanese History,’ comments how in the 17th and 18th centuries infrastructure provided by Dutch engineering and African slave labour enabled settlement of the normally flooded coastlands through building of a network of dams, canals, sluices and sea defences. To this, one must add the usual infrastructure of buildings and houses essential for protection from tropical sun and rain. McGowan also records that in the mid-19th century there was a high mortality rate amongst indentured immigrants, due, in part at least, to inadequate sanitation, swampy and flooded residential areas, polluted water and poor housing. Guyanese today are still impacted by these. As a result, timely repair, maintenance and/or equal social access to infrastructure are also obviously important.
Sustainability
Adequate infrastructure is important for the country to grow and develop. For more than half a century, a number of European countries pursued construction-related conservation programmes, with activities ranging from reclamation of contaminated land as building sites to planning urban centres to reduce car use. Presently, similar programmes have developed into express policies on sustainable construction. This is not the case in developing countries, like Guyana, where such policies have been firmly retarded by lack of awareness and enunciation.
Recognising this state of affairs, in 2002, the ‘Agenda 21 for Sustainable Construction in Developing Countries’ was published in South Africa as a research base with regional position papers from researchers in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Its aim is to prepare research entirely by experts from developing countries to address their own specific needs and challenges, with the object of stimulating debate and encouraging the exchange of information. (If time and space in these articles allow, there can be a further discourse on Agenda 21’s sustainability, with reference to analysis on Guyana. For now readers can access information on Agenda 21 online via search-words in the title above.)
Gap
Modern infrastructure can inspire the nation. It can generate an environment of enabling transport systems and stimulate the movement of people, and efficient buildings for both work and leisure, which can be expressive of Guyana’s cultural values. It can also inspire special cultural buildings, engendering creativity which feeds back into innovation by citizens and new ways of increasing productivity. As we go about absorbed in daily tasks, it can be easy to overlook the effect of the built environment, which is a biting contradiction, because it is all around us and influences our character and that of our communities. Construction, infrastructure, or the built environment, by any name, impacts the quality of life but in a way that we only grasp when things do not work. Witness today in Guyana the reality of unregulated construction, haphazard planning, the absence of off-street parking spaces in Georgetown and beyond, clogged drainage and flood-water penetration into bottom flats, interrupted power and water supply, and towns and villages in urgent need of a great Infrastructure Recovery Plan. The foregoing helps indicate the infrastructure gap, a crude measure between what we may desire, and the existing reality.
In 2017, the Inter-American Development Bank, in outlining its strategy and with reference to Guyana, stated:
“The infrastructure stock is inadequate to support delivery of public services or facilitate private sector growth. While it is difficult to estimate the infrastructure gap, according to the World Bank, Guyana will need to spend around 104 percent of GDP over the next 20 years to reach adequate infrastructure coverage.”
(See: IDB Group Country Strategy with the Cooperative Republic of Guyana 2017–2021: October 2017 sheet 21: https://www.iadb.org/en/about-us/country-strategies )
This extract indicates a different way of assessing the infrastructure gap. But with or without oil, construction is a critical tool in closing said gap.
Cultural property
As hinted above, the built environment embodies aspects of History. The environment is inherited by one generation, cared for or neglected as the case may be, then bequeathed to the next as a megalith historical artefact. The late architect, Rory Westmaas, has illustrated how the European settlers in Guyana re-interpreted their native (stone) architecture in timber, copying, of geographic necessity, a method of the coastal Amerindians where dwelling platforms were built on trees cut to a height. Later, our Guyanese ancestors imitated these structures, with wealthier houses on pillars, and poorer ones raised a few feet above ground. (See: ‘Building under our sun’ by Rory Westmaas: Co-op Republic Guyana 1970; reprinted online, Guyana Review: April 29, 2010) Westmaas narrated how, for the masses, with time, an open verandah and kitchen appeared at the front and rear of single room buildings; these eventually morphed into characteristic Guyanese houses of doublepitched roofed structure, with lean-to slopes to front and rear. It is reasonable to conclude that these structures and their evolution were an organic part of the lives of ordinary Guyanese, as much as the apparently mundane houses around us today.
Occasionally, a particular structure is preserved for its significance or symbolism. Examples of these are the heritage sites in Guyana gazetted as National Monuments, which are the responsibility of the National Trust. Included are structures of vernacular buildings of timber on brick columns, like the design type described above, such as Red House and State House. The Monuments generally represent “the hopes or aspirations of the [Guyanese] people built to withstand the sands of times,” as the National Trust website informs. Indeed, the UN has selected ‘World Heritage sites’ based on the same ethos (and belonging to the global community). The Guyanese vernacular has not gained recognition (and financial support) at this global level. The records show that in 2003, following a gathering in Georgetown of international experts on protection of cultural property, there were moves to improve representation of the heritage of the Caribbean region. However, so far the sole World Heritage recognition of wooden urban property is the historic Inner City of Paramaribo, in 2002. (See: Proceedings of the Thematic Expert Meeting on Wooden Urban Heritage in the Caribbean Region, February 2003)
An achievement such as Paramaribo’s lends evident pride, plus practical financial contribution from the global community. Conservation of old structures is costly, demanding planning and a corps of architects and contractors prepared to devote conscientious time to past design details. This can be stymied by lack of appreciation and lack of funds. Still, there is benefit in cultivating such properties, which embody aspects of our culture and history; and this too falls to the construction industry.
The next Part will focus on the role of the construction industry within the economy.
Reaction On July 5th, 2019 the High Court ruled against the application by Minister of Finance to stay a jail order against him over a US$2 million judgement. The order to pay was finalised by the CCJ after Dipcon Engineering Limited, a roadwork contractor, won the amount indicated before the High Court. The Attorney General had failed to file an appeal in the prescribed time and had appealed all the way to the CCJ for a waiver, unsuccessfully so. This is not an isolated occurrence. In a somewhat similar 2007 case of Attorney General –v- NH International, the latter, a roadwork contractor, gained amounts of US$11 million and G$411 million at adjudication, upheld by a High Court Judge in chambers. The Attorney General omitted to challenge treatment process of the adjudication and jurisdiction of the Judge, but sought to appeal the same all the way to the CCJ, unsuccessfully.