The power of immunisation
May 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment
World Immunisation Week was observed from April 21 to 28, 2012 with activities in more than 180 countries. The theme of the week: ‘Protect your world: Get vaccinated’, was aimed at reinforcing the importance of immunisation and encouraging people everywhere to vaccinate themselves and their children against serious diseases.
New Employment Opportunities (NEO)
May 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Unemployment is one of the main challenges facing countries, both developed and developing. In particular, unemployment leads to financial crisis and reduces the overall purchasing capacity of a nation. This in turn results in persons getting in the bracket of poverty followed by increasing burden of debt.
Youth today make up the larger part of the population of almost every country in the world. This presents certain challenges for policy makers to develop, implement and maintain programmes and activities which must be economically and socially oriented to satisfy their (youth) desires. It is also well known that the absence of well-thought-out programmes with respect to youth development impacts negatively on our young people, and sometimes even lead to them resigning themselves to lawlessness and other anti-social behaviours.
It is true that unemployment and poverty are mostly common in the less developed economies, but due to the global economic meltdown, even the developed economies find themselves in a difficult position with respect to providing employment for their people.
It would be reasonable to say that young people have been crying out for decent jobs after they would have obtained certain skills and qualifications. But how could this challenge be tackled? To begin with, policy makers have always agreed that access to quality education is essential to seize opportunities in order to emerge from poverty. Everyone must have the opportunity to develop themselves, have their rights protected and have access to basic services. The way to achieving this is by including fair, inclusive social policies in national development agendas which focus on supporting the entire society, especially the vulnerable communities.
Last week, the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), a member of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group, and the International Youth Foundation (IYF), joined with five of the region’s leading employers: Walmart, Caterpillar, Microsoft, CEMEX, and Arcos Dorados/McDonald’s to launch a new partnership called New Employment Opportunities (NEO). This ground-breaking alliance between these major corporations and the public sector seeks to expand effective job training and placement models and is aimed at targeting one million youths in Latin America and the Caribbean over the next decade. These five companies together currently employ more than half a million workers in the region.
The IDB has said that the project aims to improve job entry on a significant scale among poor and low-income youths by bringing together key private and public actors to provide high-impact, market-relevant training and job placement services to the region’s young people. Through this ambitious initiative, the private sector will play a leading role in helping governments develop strategies to address youth unemployment.
Official statistics show that 32 million young people in the region (one in every five youth, ages 15 to 29) are neither at work nor in school. This disadvantaged group is increasingly excluded from the formal economy and is at risk of engaging in crime, gang-related, and other unhealthy and violent activities. At the same time, a 2011 survey of a number of companies in Latin America and the Caribbean by the workforce consulting company, Manpower, reveals that half of the firms across the region are struggling to find qualified employees. This is certainly troubling and the region’s governments and policy makers must take stock of what exactly they are not doing right.
It is well accepted that there is a need for more effective youth programmes geared towards changing the lifestyles of young people in our society. Importantly too is that these programmes should include assessment and identification of ways to build competency and skills supportive of healthy behaviours to help young people as they mature towards adulthood.
The aim of NEO is to address these challenges by launching large-scale training programmes that prepare young people with both technical and life skills that will help them succeed in entry-level jobs as a start-up. The NEO initiative is an excellent one, but achieving the objectives will require the active involvement of governments and private sector organisations and other key players committed to meaningful youth development.
Arrival Day
May 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
After the storm and thunder of debating the merits and demerits of Indian Arrival Day, in 2004 the government, decided to designate May 5th as a public holiday but as “Arrival Day”. On one hand it was probably acknowledging that it was not only the Indian Guyanese who had ‘arrived’ in Guyana from somewhere else, but every other group that presently resides here as citizens of this Republic.
This is a fact that has not received the attention that it probably should have had. While most Guyanese will readily recount that African, Portuguese, Indian and Chinese Guyanese ‘arrived’ from their eponymous homelands, they seem to forget that the Amerindians also ‘arrived’ here – albeit much longer ago. The Europeans that ‘arrived’ were generally considered as transitory and rather than commemorating their arrival, waxed nostalgic about ‘returning home’.
The elementary school text books recount how thousands of years ago the distant ancestors of the Amerindians crossed the Bering Straits from Asia into Alaska. In the ensuing millennia, they gradually percolated into South America including Guyana. While the records are not conclusive, it appears that their first settlements were in the North West District. But since their arrival is lost in the mists of antiquity, Amerindians do not observe “Arrival Day” and have rather designated themselves “Indigenous”.
Because Africans were originally brought here as slaves to work on the sugar plantations, their descendants are not taken by the notion of commemorating their arrival. That is hardly surprising in light of the degradation and horror of the passage across the Atlantic and their subsequent degradation on the plantations. In fact, of recent, African Guyanese have begun to mark October 12 – the day Columbus stumbled across the Americas and eventually leading to slavery – as “Holocaust Day”. Their day of emancipation (August 1, 1834) is commemorated with pomp and ceremony every August 1st.
The Portuguese were the first group after the Africans to be brought in to replace the labour of the ex-slaves. However, after their compulsory indentured period, they quickly established themselves as the business class and worked assiduously to blend in with the ruling European and Creole strata. They downplayed their arrival as indentured servants and never commemorated their initial arrival on May 3rd, 1935. The Chinese arrived after the Indians – first on January 12th, 1853 – but their overall small numbers and paucity of females forced their assimilation into the general population. They also did not commemorate ‘arrival day’.
The 239,909 Indians, however, that arrived between May 5th, 1838 and April 17th, 1917 (SS Ganges) – were generally sequestered around the sugar plantations and formed a cohesive block that retained much of their culture. More than two-thirds decided to remain in Guyana as their new homeland. They began to commemorate their arrival in a consistent manner after the mammoth celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the event in 1938.
Today, it is still only Indian-Guyanese that commemorate “Indian Arrival Day” and perhaps it is time that the government reconsiders their well-meaning but evidently quixotic attempt to have all groups celebrate their “arrival’ into Guyana. In Trinidad, they were faced with a similar situation, when their holiday was first labelled “Arrival Day”. It was soon changed to “Indian Arrival Day”, which it remains to this day.
The ambiguity is evident here when, even on the official Ministry of Culture’s website, in describing “National Events & Festivals”, it proclaims: “Arrival Day is observed on May 5th annually. It is one of the newest events on Guyana’s cultural calendar. It commemorates the first arrival of Indian labourers who came on May 5, 1838 on the ships, Whitby and Hesperus that landed with 936 Indian indentured workers after a hazardous journey crossing from Calcutta to then British Guiana.
“The Indian community, descendants of these first immigrants, mark the occasion by holding religious and cultural functions.”
Project Failures!!! Why?
May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Efficiently delivering expected performance for projects remains a critical challenge for many project managers globally. Improving our understanding of how various factors influence project performance is therefore an important research objective. It is important to comprehend the processes and testing of temporal models to benchmark project performance (TMPP). Performance can be better understood by separating risk factors into earlier (a priori) risk factors and later (emergent) risk factors, and modelling the influence of the former on the latter. Project performance, the dependent variable, is measured by considering both process (budget and schedule) and product (outcome) components.
The model includes interactions between risk factors, project management practices, and project performance components and can be tested using partial least squares analysis with data from a survey of selected numbers of project managers. Results would indicate that the TMPP increases explanatory power when compared with models that link risk factors directly to project performance. The results will also show the importance for active risk management of recognising, planning for, and managing a priori and emergent risk factors.
The finding of a strong relationship between structural risk factors and subsequent volatility shows the need for risk management practice to recognise the interaction of a priori and emergent risk factors. The results confirm the importance of knowledge resources, organisational support, and project management practices that demonstrate the ways in which they reinforce each other.
Project risk analysis will evidence that lack of clear links between the project and the organisation’s key strategic priorities – including agreed measures of success and non-engagement of senior management ownership and leadership merged with ineffective engagement with stakeholders – contributes to projects outcomes evaporation and budget overruns with compromised project quality.
The case of skills depletion and proven approaches to project and risk management has defined too little attention to breaking development and implementation of projects into manageable steps. Evaluation of proposals driven by initial price rather than long-term value for money (especially securing delivery of business benefits) is the recurrent factor that often compromises project quality.
Ineffective project team integration between clients, the supplier team and the supply chain often incubate links between the project and the organisation’s key strategic priorities, including agreed measures of success. One often relates to project officers to investigate if they know how the priority of projects compares and aligns with other delivery and operational activities.
The concepts of the critical success factors (CSFs) for the project will present the following questions:
• Have the CSFs been agreed with suppliers and key stakeholders?
• Do we have a clear project plan that covers the full period of the planned delivery and all business change required, and indicates the means of benefits realisation?
• Is the project founded upon realistic timescales, taking account of statutory lead times, and showing critical dependencies such that any delays can be handled?
• Are the lessons learnt from relevant projects being applied?
• Has an analysis been undertaken to track any slippage in time, cost, scope or quality?
• Does the project management team have a clear view of the interdependencies between projects, the benefits, and the criteria against which success will be judged?
• If the project traverses organisational boundaries, are there clear governance arrangements to ensure sustainable key questions to address alignment with the business objectives of all organisations involved?
• Have we identified the right stakeholders?
• Do we understand how we will manage stakeholders (eg ensure buy-in, overcome resistance to change, allocate risk to the party best able to manage it)?
Lack of proven approach to “project and risk management” is a known factor that is commonly eliminated from projects life cycles planning; the major risks identified, weighted and treated by the Project Manager and/or project team is always lacking details to identify the issues in the project.
Inadequate approaches for estimating, monitoring and controlling the total expenditure on projects results in project managers’ inability to measure and track the realisation of benefits in the project cycle. The question of governance arrangements must be robust enough to ensure “bad news” is not filtered out of progress reports to key stakeholders.
Most project managers do not have an established evaluation approach that allows them to balance financial factors against quality and security of delivery of the project, and the evaluation approach quite often lacks criticality and value engineering analysis.
The Earned Value Management (EVM) technique for measuring project progress in an objective manner is a lost tool in today’s project management execution. EVM has the ability to combine measurements of scope, schedule, and cost in a single integrated system and with the use of the project Gantt chart effectively, the ratios of Cost Variance percentage, Cost Performance Indicator (CPI), To Complete Cost Performance Indicator (TCPI), Schedule and Cost Performance Index (SCPI) etc can be used to report on project status and forecast future performance trends.
Using the approaches that are scientifically driven merged with contemporary models may be the answer to the dormant cycles of projects management and using targeted project indicators will form the baseline for determining project flights whether within the boundaries of a controlled environment or even if the critical path is used as the justified option during the project life cycle.
Press freedom and responsibility
May 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Today is World Press Freedom Day. Established by the General Assembly of the UN in December, 1993, it stresses the well known rights associated with press freedom. But it is also a day of reflection to encourage debate among media professionals on their professional ethics. As with all ethics, while journalists in Guyana will hone to universal principles, their application must take cognisance of local realities.
Last month we ran a series of editorials that in essence called for our local media to appreciate their role in our country’s development. We echoed the comments of Justice Katju, head of the regulatory Press Council of India: Our societies are in transition from a very backward feudalistic past to modern society. Old values are crumbling, but new modern values have not yet been put in place. “In this transition period the role of ideas, and therefore of the media, becomes extremely important. At a particular historical juncture, ideas become a material force.”
Back in the 1940’s the U.S. was confronted with a media that had become very irresponsible; much like ours at the present, focusing on sensationalism and other forms of yellow journalism. The Hutchins Committee was established and presented its report in 1947. The ideal of the media fulfilling its social responsibility was established and has since become the talisman of western journalism.
Its normative view of the media argues that its conduct has to take into account public interests. The main public interest criterions identified, include freedom of publication, plurality in media ownership, diversity in information, culture and opinion, support for the democratic political system, support for public order and security of the state, universal reach, quality of information and culture disseminated to the public, respect for human rights and avoiding harm to individuals and the society.
The above view dealt with the needs of the U.S. at the time. In the 1970’s, as we mentioned, the third world introduced the additional notion of ‘developmental journalism’ which stressed the need of the media to purvey news that would facilitate the countries’ developmental agendas. In the years since, we noted that the model became tainted because it conflated the imperatives of incumbent governments and those of the state. In jettisoning the model, we suggested we might have thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
The issue, we proposed was how do we make the media, the major purveyor of ideas at this time, more responsible. We iterated that the principle of self-regulation which is the dominant paradigm presently, by definition, is dubious at best – the cat demanding that it be trusted to guard the milk. The information presented by the media, crucial to the health of the public sphere which actually governs the government, must be presented less sensationally and includes a developmental component.
We suggested some form of oversight with teeth to impose the guidelines that would be the outcome of a consultative process with stakeholders. The formation of an oversight media body (OMB) that would combine the work of the present Media Monitoring Unit (MMU) – which is activated during elections – and the Advisory Council on Broadcasting (ACB), might be the way to proceed. The name and shame strategy of the MMU to keep the media in line would be augmented with punitive powers of the ACB; to recommend fines and suspension of licenses of transgressors.
The OMB would be composed of media representatives but headed by a retired member of the Appellate Court who will be fully versed in the constitutional rights and obligations sought to be imposed. The OMB should be financially independent to preclude governmental control while punitive disciplinary procedures, rather than censorship, would rein-in rogue elements in the media who destroy the democratic values in public life and retard national development.
We hope a debate on the above proposal is sparked on this International Press Day.
World Urbanisation: Challenges
May 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The United Nations has reported that Africa and Asia would lead urban population growth over the next four decades, as the number of people on those continents is likely to reach 4.5 billion by 2050, according to a recent report released by the organisation.
According to the 2011 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects, a publication of the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the urban population in Africa, notably in Nigeria, would triple from 413 million to more than 1.2 billion between 2011 and 2015, while the number of Asia’s urban inhabitants, especially in India and China, would almost double, rising from 1.9 billion to 3.3 billion The additional 2.3 billion on the two continents would account for 86 per cent of urban population expansion around the world, according to the report. “This will pose new challenges,” said Jomo Kwame Sundaram, assistant secretary general for economic development, at a news conference to launch the report. In a press release, the UN quoted Sundaram as saying that Africa and Asia will have to experience very significant economic growth to be able to increase urban employment opportunities, expand urban transportation infrastructure, and improve water supply systems, as well as energy systems. Moreover, urban areas on both continents would require substantially more housing, schools and public health services to accommodate both the growing number of people born in their cities, as well as the influx of migrants from rural areas.
Interesting also is that Sundaram was quoted as saying that by 2050, some 9.3 billion people would inhabit the planet, more than two thirds of them in urban areas. He said that trend was worrisome as 60 per cent of all cities with one million inhabitants or more – home to a total of 890 million people – were located in areas at risk for at least one major type of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, landslides, or droughts. “All this poses very special challenges and that is why the whole discussion preceding the ‘Rio+20’ Conference in June this year on sustainable cities becomes all the more important,” he said.
Gerhard Heilig, chief of the department’s Population Estimates and Projections Section, said the 2011 report included the geographical coordinates of all cities with more than 750,000 inhabitants, the first time that such data had been included in the biennial publication. Their inclusion would allow researchers in various fields to link urban population growth projections to various environmental characteristics, such as a city’s proximity to coastal areas, earthquake faults or climate zones, as well as the related risk factors, Mr Heilig said. “That’s important, specifically for development planning and all types of geophysical analysis,” he noted, describing the inclusion of such analysis as “a quantum leap forward”.
In a response as to whether Asia and Africa should bolster family-planning and population-control efforts because of their explosive urban-population growth, Mr Heilig was reported as saying that that was a “very sensitive” area, pointing out that their growth had nothing to do with reproductive behaviour and high fertility rates and would continue despite large and rapid declines in fertility. Rather, it was due to population momentum — or natural increases in population — even when childbearing levels dropped immediately to replacement levels. He cites the example of China, which had a policy of restricting married urban couples to only one child, but the urban population continued to expand rapidly despite the very low fertility rate.
What should also be noted as pointed out by Sundaram is that people in the developing world had large families as a type of insurance against high infant and child mortality rates. But they would have less incentive to create large families if their governments – instead of their own children – provided for them in times of need. He emphasised the vital importance of the social protection floors created over the last few years, which provided access to such essential services as health care, education, housing, water, and sanitation, as well as cash stipends to pay for such services. Indeed, some very interesting facts were presented in the report, and it is hoped that governments and policymakers would take note of the challenges that are likely to arise as a result of a dramatic rise in urban populations so that they can make the necessary interventions to cater for such changes. This is necessary, as the experts have made it quite clear that cities are precisely where the pressures of migration, globalisation, economic development, social inequality, environmental pollution, and climate change all come together.
Labour’s Loss
April 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Today is “Labour Day”, a day dedicated to recognising those that devote their labour to ensure that the needs of the rest of mankind are satisfied. There was a time when everyone performed their own physical labour to secure their daily bread. But with the passage of time and the discovery of the benefits of specialisation, some laboured to organise others so that the latter benefits could be maximised.
And in this fashion, mankind entered into the most productive period of the entire history of the species. But it was observed that those who performed the physical labour in these productive activities received the short end of the stick. Soon their plight was championed by intellectuals and other socially conscious individuals and the ‘labour movement’ was born. It was very unfortunate that – as is customary in any struggle – the lines had to be drawn rather starkly: the battle, so to speak, was to be waged by the ‘working classes’ against the ‘capitalists’.
The latter, it was arbitrarily decided, were those that employed the former: like all arbitrary definitions it missed many nuances. But in the meantime the struggle by the trade unions that had been formed to champion the cause of the ‘workers’ did compel the powers that be that their demands for a life of dignity must be met. And so was born “trade unions” and the “welfare state”. The state, formed as an expression of the will of all the people, would intercede so that the wealth generated by productive institutions would be equitably shared.
And this is where Guyana has arrived in its developmental trajectory. No one today would question the fact that all citizens, including the ‘working class’, are entitled to certain basic needs. The government of the day, founded by individuals that came out of the womb of trade unionism, has consistently committed one of the highest percentages of their budget in the region to the social sector. Universal health care and education are now within our reach – ensuring that workers have equal life opportunities with others.
As the workers’ struggle unfolded and their rights became normalised – workers here even have a Ministry of Labour to ensure there is an even playing field for all – the pendulum inevitably swung towards the centre. Its momentum revealed – at least in the most developed and progressive countries – that the castigated and excoriated ‘capitalists’ were, in fact, quite differentiated. The owners of factories and institutions that delivered services were now accepted as performing essential ‘work’ to deliver necessary goods to the society.
In Guyana, this fact has not received appropriate recognition and some trade unionists are still fighting battles from the last century. They must recognise and accept that workers, owners, and managers must collaborate so that productivity and living standards for all continue on an upward trajectory. Ironically, in the ‘developed’ countries, the role of the literal ‘capitalists’ – the financial sector – has now come under fire, and workers are lobbying for their employers (owners of factories and services) to be bailed out.
So today, all Guyanese workers and their representatives – whether they are marching in the streets or relaxing at home will have to reflect as to how their interests can best be served and furthered. As we pointed out, the modern state has as an integral function the protection of workers’ rights. In Guyana today, we have an anomalous situation – the state is under the simultaneous control of the executive, controlled by the PPP and the legislature, controlled by the opposition APNU and AFC.
It was very unfortunate that on the eve of Labour Day, the opposition decided to impose cuts on the budget that threw hundreds of workers on the breadlines. It was even worse that their only justification was on a procedural technicality and to gain ‘leverage’ over the PPP government. It was labour’s loss.
Food prices and meeting the MDGs
April 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Higher food prices globally have pushed many more people into poverty, but the increase in the number of poor is only part of the emerging costs of the crisis. The more profound consequence is the impact of rising prices on households who were already poor. For those already struggling to meet their daily food and nutritious needs, the double shocks of food and fuel price rises represent a threat to basic survival.
Already, 44 million people have been added to the ranks of the poor globally since 2010, following the food price spike. This is enough to cause governments, international organisations, and policymakers to take urgent steps to minimise the effects on vulnerable populations. A joint report released a few days ago by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) states that the developing world’s progress is seriously lagging on global targets related to food and nutrition, with rates of child and maternal mortality still unacceptably high. The Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2012 points to the recent spikes in international food prices, which have stalled progress across several of the MDGs.
GMR 2012: Food Prices, Nutrition and the Millennium Development Goals reports good progress across some MDGs, with targets related to reducing extreme poverty and providing access to safe drinking water already achieved, a few years ahead of the 2015 deadline. Also, is encouraging to note that targets on education and ratio of girls to boys in schools are within reach.
In contrast, the world is significantly off-track on the MDGs which seek to reduce mortality rates of children under five and mothers. As a result, these goals will not be met in any developing region by 2015 since according to the report, progress is slowest on maternal mortality, with only one-third of the targeted reduction achieved thus far. Also, progress on reducing infant and child mortality is similarly dismal, with only 50 per cent of the targeted decline achieved.
It is no surprise that the report underlines the fact that regional progress towards the MDGs is uneven. For example, while upper middle income countries are on track to achieve most targets, low-income or fragile countries are lagging. And while food prices have declined from their 2011 peaks, commodity prices remain volatile.
It is, therefore, necessary that the issue of dealing with food price volatility be a priority. Justin Yifu Lin, the World Bank’s chief economist and senior vice president for development economics is of the opinion that high and volatile food prices do not bode well for attainment of many MDGs, as they erode consumer purchasing power and prevent millions of people from escaping poverty and hunger, besides having long-term adverse impacts on health and education. This view was also supported by Hugh Bredenkamp, deputy director of the IMF’s Strategy, Policy and Review Department. Bredenkamp is of the view that the fragile global economy could very well slow developing countries’ progress on human development goals, since the fiscal debt, and current account positions, particularly of low income countries, have been weakened by the global financial crisis.
Further, Jos Verbeek, lead economist at the World Bank and author of GMR 2012, cautioned that declining development assistance, population growth and high food prices will make the need to focus on nutrition programmes for the poor even more challenging. Hence, the report recommends that countries deploy agricultural policies to encourage farmers to increase production; use social safety nets to improve resilience; strengthen nutritional policies to improve early childhood development; and design trade policies that enhance access to food markets, reduce food price volatility, and induce productivity gains.
The challenges, even though difficult to overcome, are not insurmountable. At the global level, the international development partners have a responsibility to act quickly and comprehensively in the face of this global threat to the human capital of the poor, as the costs to the international development community and national treasuries of responding to the crisis are much less than the potential costs of millions more of undernourished and poorly educated children. For this reason, developed countries and the international community must help mobilise the financial and technical resources needed to aid these efforts in order to ensure that poorer countries do not get poorer or remain in poverty.
Night of the long knives
April 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Back in Germany circa 1934, Adolf Hitler decided to make his final push for total, undisputed power over his country. Of course, he had already written Mein Kampf, and the extermination of six million Jews and a war to end all wars was already on his megalomaniacal mind. He became convinced that a rival group to his Nazis posed a threat to his plans. So he invited its leadership to a meeting and later announced that sixty-one of them had been executed; thirteen had been shot resisting arrest and three had committed suicide.
Hitler called it “Night of the Long Knives” and explained: “In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason.” This was the turning point in modern German history and when the German people accepted Hitler’s violation of all the norms of German civilisation, there was no turning back. Hitler was now the supreme ruler of Germany who had the right to be judge and jury, and had the power to decide whether people lived or died.
Since that time, whenever a democratically elected leader goes egregiously beyond the bounds of political propriety to betray others and hide behind the skirt of ‘for the people’s good’ it has been referred to as “Night of the Long Knives”. After British PM McMillan fired half of his cabinet, one opponent mocked him after that Night of the Long Knives: “Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his friends for his life.”
On the night of April 26, Guyana had its Night of the Long Knives. The opposition APNU and the AFC took their one-seat majority and eviscerated the Budget to the tune of $20 billion. Swearing like Hitler that they know what was ‘good’ for the Guyanese people, Messrs Ramjattan and Nagamootoo of the AFC and David Granger of the APNU/AFC became the judge and jury to decide whether Guyanese lived or died.
They threw hundreds of employees into the streets; effectively eliminated the government news agency; defanged the anti-drug agency CANU that was in the forefront of dealing with that menace threatening to overrun our country and reduced the proposed subsidy intended to prevent an electricity tariff hike for the rest of the country, excepting Linden. Perversely they refused to approve the phasing down of the subsidy for the latter town that would have seen its residents still paying only half of what the rest of the country are paying.
But the literal unkindest cut of all, and the largest in amount – $18 billion – was to the visionary flagship Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) that has earned Guyana kudos from many countries and multilateral agencies concerned with sustainable development within the context of global warming and climate change. What made the cut unbelievable and arbitrary was the rationale offered by the opposition parties: the money for the projects was not yet handed over.
In addition to breaking tradition to seize control of the Speaker’s Chair (and the Deputy) and the Committee of Selection, the opposition is once again pushing the envelope to conduct a personal vendetta against the architect of the LCDS – former President Bharrat Jagdeo. The opposition is perfectly aware that the monies from GRIF had not been handed over because of the need to identify specific projects. Now that the government has done so – including 11 thousand solar systems to 150 hinterland communities – the opposition would cut our nose to spoil our face.
After this demonstration of the willingness to bring out and wield the ‘long knives’, it is our considered judgement that the government’s programmes will consistently be subverted henceforth by the opposition. Snap elections might appear to be the only option to save Guyana.
Radicalisation
April 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment
