Much more work needs to be done to achieve widespread prosperity

Dear Editor,

There is much work that needs to be done in the areas of electricity and transport. Getting to netzero is not easy for anyone on this planet and getting to the goal of cheaper electricity should not be hard in a modern world but it is, especially for us in Guyana. We have jungles to go through before we can get our electricity to existing population centers, and to add to that, we have far flung coastal areas that need to be traversed across daily to make economic life a reality. On top of this, we need to think of the future as we vision for infrastructure and do so according to sound environmental principles and high health and safety standards for people. There is a lot of work to do and many funding agencies are willing and able to lend us the money to get the job done. Many of us are also willing and able to do the best job possible, wherever we happen to be stationed. External agencies that fund projects to improve our lives, lend us money but cannot tell us how to manage the funds, or how to pay our people. What happens then? We are all aware that we wind up not getting what is paid for. Why does this happen in Guyana?

Editor, we have big problems. It is code red for the environment and code red for our health, safety and sanity. We need to do things wisely, maturely and in recognition of real and bigger threats to our prosperity. As a nation, we do not possess the war chest to aid us in negotiation with giants. Before we can give ourselves a better chance in the world, we need to achieve strong, wise, scientific and holistic governance practices. Only then would we be able to achieve widespread prosperity through pervasive, progressive industrial activity, the kind that brings with it perpetual income streams. Editor, please permit me the space to pose a few questions.

1) How many petty ‘bosses’ are

out there using their offices to run rackets with their friends, to the detriment of widespread prosperity?

2) How many of our qualified and talented people must wind up working under incompetents who side track our development by ‘micro managing’ our implementing agencies?

3) How many fully funded projects have been stifled and mismanaged to satisfy the greed and the egos of insecure, unintelligent, petty and fearful ‘older generations’ and their surrogates?

4) Could we not see that if we are hired and paid to do what we are funded to do, that we would achieve systems that reduce the cost of living; create more well-paying jobs for tens of thousands of our people and improve livelihoods for generations thereafter?

5) Can we not see that narrow-minded, fear-based pettiness holds us back from tremendous economic fortune and strategic advantage? Or are we angry that it is not us in the hot seat getting to do it ourselves?

6) Can we not see that the ‘internal poverty’ that plagues the leadership of implementing agencies, is keeping us from achieving the systems, services and infrastructure that could unlock our economic and social potentials?

7) How many talented people do we lose, when the forces that govern implementing authorities are the fears and insecurities of petty gatekeepers?

8) How many of us are overworked, underpaid and then thrown under the bus, in our own professional lives? How many of us have to face the fears of ‘older generations’ who bully and abuse us in the interest of maintaining what they are simply, accustomed to?

9) When would those of us who really want to work for our country, actually get the jobs, on the basis of our skills and talents?

10) Would any sincere, hard-working, well-intentioned human being find it worthwhile to work for people who are terrified of widespread prosperity and abundance?

Editor, would our people ever get to live to see the power of the gifts they have been given in life? Would our people get to live, unresisted in their Truth, to provide for their families and loved ones and to give to their country, the best of their own growth and evolution? Who among us is able to live with themselves, knowing that they are stifling an entire nation? What is the economic and social cost of ‘tyrannical bosses’ and ‘fearful professionals’ in Guyana?

Sincerely,

Emille Giddings