How the overwhelming unemployment problem could be tackled

Dear Editor,

We have an overwhelming unemployment problem. This feeds into boredom, poverty and crime, and the crime situation dominates all aspects of our lives. The perpetrators of violent crime are for the most part young, able bodied men. The root causes are numerous, and have been ventilated ad nauseam from Parliament to corner shop. It is time to discuss solutions.

Job creation must be a sustained and many layered campaign. The majority of our unemployed are products of a failed education system and are limited in the type of work they can do. Many are victims of the contractions in the timber, sugar and mining industries. They want work, and they need money.

This demographic has traditionally been employed in the sugar, rice, timber and mining industries as labourers, weeders, cutters, tractor operators, machine operators, drivers, chainsaw operators, dredgers, etc. It is my view that the best chance of employment opportunity within the reach of the authorities for this group continues to lie in areas of resource extraction and agriculture. These are labour intensive industries, which can absorb an unskilled workforce, and do not need to rely on our existing fragile and unreliable electrical and transportation infrastructure.

To create these jobs, Guyana needs new investors who can set up shop in the interior and extract resources without having to rely on our failing infrastructure.

The single largest requirement to attract foreign investors engaged in those industries is investor confidence: our authorities need to demonstrate that investors can be confident that we will keep our promises to them.

It will be for the authorities to ensure that the contracts they make with the investors ensure sustainable husbandry of resources, adherence to environmental laws and protection of indigenous rights. Conditions must be attached: fixing minimum employment obligations, safety measures, tax obligations and financial accountability. This is what we elect our leaders to safeguard, and they need to have the competence to undertake the responsibility.

But once the contracts are finalized, the authorities must understand that contracts must be honoured, so that investors have confidence in our country and more investors are thus encouraged to bring their money and ideas to Guyana to create jobs and grow the economy. Lee Kuan Yew, the transformative leader of Singapore, explained why, despite its dearth of natural resources, that country attracted foreign investment: “[How did] Singapore make a living against neighbours who have more natural resources, human resources, and bigger space? How did we differentiate ourselves from them? Once we come to an agreement or make a decision, we stick to it. We become credible to investors.”

Once we can understand that Guyana must keep the agreements which it makes with foreign investors, they will come. They will be attracted to our minerals, our timber, and our agriculture. And there will be employment, crime will decline, and the society will become more stable. President Hoyte saw this, and his Economic Recovery Programme began to make it happen, but we have frittered away the benefits. If we can get this right, the stage will be set for another phase of development.

Yours faithfully, Timothy Jonas