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Oct 03, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
I was in the Kaieteur News on Thursday night and the attention of a group of us was directed to Channel 65 news. The broadcaster was reading from an item on the official deliveries at the opening of GuyExpo. Viewers were told that the President said that other countries are learning from the financial policies of Guyana. No need to tell you how I felt – both hilarity and disgust. What can a failed state like Guyana teach the rulers of other countries? The absolute truth is absolutely nothing.
When you look at Guyana and see the mess (both literally and figuratively) that has enveloped this country over four decades of Independence, then it is complete asininity for anyone to say that we have a track record from which others can learn. Learn what? I can tell you what the leadership of other lands can find in Guyana – the principle of how to recede in time and leave modernization behind. What type of economic policies have the PPP Government and the Jagdeo presidency pursued, that other Cabinets around the world find worthy of emulating?
The gargantuan irony about that announcement of Guyana teaching other nations about economic development is that the most underdeveloped territories have lessons for us here in Guyana to internalize. I am most surprised that Professor Clive Thomas, Christopher Ram and Dr. Tarron Khemraj have not devastated the miasmic propaganda coming from within the Guyana Government that Guyana has been insulated from the tempestuous waves that spread around the world from the American economic collapse. Guyana could not have been adversely permeated because we are not economically developed enough to be integrated into the world economy like some of our CARICOM neighbours.
The graphic truth is that yes, we were not negatively impacted upon because there was nothing in Guyana to be severely lacerated. Here is a simple example. Our use of cyberspace technology for financial purposes in Guyana is far, far lower than even small Caribbean states like Aruba, St. Maarten. If there is going to be a meltdown in internet technology that would affect the world economy, Guyana’s system is not going to be as ruined as many, many other small states in the Third World for a basic commonsensical reason – we are not developed enough to engage in high financial transaction in global affairs.
In Guyana, if the richest company pays you with a million-dollar cheque and you deposit that money in your account, you can only have access to it after four days because that is the time it takes to validate the legitimacy of the cheque.
When you hear nonsensical talk about other countries adopting Guyana’s approach to economic strategies, you know as a patriotic Guyanese you must reply to this madness, so foolish and mediocre leaders could be exposed for their abysmal track-record. On every level (I will use the word “every”) of progress we are far behind countries that were not as developed as we were in the fifties. We are going back to ancient times.
Let’s start with the science of toxicology. What can we teach other nations about forensic science in a country that has one of the highest indices of violent crime per capita? Readers need to know what is going on with the Sheema Mangar murder. That is the young lady who was ran over by a car after her cell phone was stolen.
In forensic science, the chemical, luminol, is crucial. It is applied to objects then when blood and other substances show up, DNA testing is done. Guyana does not have luminol. This writer was confidentially told that the police are reluctant to pay for DNA findings because the test is pretty expensive. Now that may not be right but it is logical. After all, Guyana is so poor that our schools lack furniture. Our only university is a disgrace. So where is the police force going to get money for constant DNA examinations?
Can we teach other nations about economic development when we retire police, soldiers, teachers, magistrates and skilled civil servants at 55? What can we advise other leaders from foreign lands on when we dig up expensive streets to lay pipes, fill the holes with sand and they become massive pot-holes weeks after? Do other countries have expensive electricity supply as we do? When are the Ministers going to give a walk-about tour of Georgetown to a visiting president or prime minister? When that leader sees those alleyways, he must think that dinosaurs live there. I know what our Government and the PPP leaders can teach the world – how to issue contracts.
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