When will the historical lessons of our colossal failures and blunders
be learned?
Kaieteur News, 7 June 2007
Dear Editor,
Mr. E. Kwayana's recent letter (SN, 6/5/2007) on ethanol just touches
the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.”
Mr. E. Kwayana was correct when he pointed out that the sugar industry
should have long been diversified into a chemical/food/energy industry.
This economic/ developmental mode of thinking has been advanced by
capable and qualified experts, Dr. C. Thomas included.
The question is: why were these ideas not given priority over the years
by PNC and/or PPP Governments?
Are there any facilities and technical human resources to develop and
implement these ideas?
How can any of these ideas bear fruit especially when UG is a
politically abused and deprived, rather than being made a catalytic
centre of developmental initiatives and innovations?
Is there electricity (continuous, cheap) and water (continuous, clean)
supply available to deliver to these types of industries to make them
feasible?
The evident state of our dire predicament (economic, scientific,
engineering, social, etc) points to the failure of our political class
(PPP and PNC) and their continuous underdevelopment mindset, grounded
by 41 years of anti-intellectualism perpetuated by Dr. Cheddi Jagan's
brand of political rhetoric and thoughts.
Like most Third World countries, we are continually being
underdeveloped by an essentially undemocratic political class, whose
rise to power is principally based and fortified by their empowerment
from an ethnic/tribal/racial group support rather than having electoral
empowerment for laying the groundwork for developmental infrastructure
for progress.
As a result, advice from academics, scientists, engineers, and business
professionals means absolute nothing to this political class other than
for the necessary use for propaganda purposes to prolong their hold on
power. The major preoccupation of this political class is still
race/ethnicity despite the declining situation. The Guyanese society is
stunted by the self-imposed racial divisions created and perpetuated by
the political class, in order to keep political power for themselves by
whatever means necessary.
This underdevelopment culture has been going on for 41 years or more,
and it is called Jaganism. Jaganism (nationalisation, socialism, Soviet
type and style system, etc.) was first implemented by Mr. Burnham in
his own PNC wrapper. As a result, academics, scientists, engineers, and
business people, etc, from all backgrounds were dealt the first
economic blow after independence. Consequently, Guyanese professionals
were forced to flee Guyana by whatever means necessary, in order to
survive the descent into economic and social decline.
This, of course, left the ruling political class (of PPP and PNC) even
more heavily entrenched in power. They, however, lack the necessary
skills needed to maintain the economic structures that had previously
caused Guyana to be called the ‘bread basket' of the Caribbean .
In short, the political class of the PPP and PNC has continuously
removed (over 41 years, by their politics) the academics, scientists,
engineers, technical bureaucrats and business people ( viz: the engine
of development) from within our society. They have installed with depth
the ‘race game' to play at their convenience for propaganda purposes to
perpetuate their hold on political power.
I shall now show a few current practical examples from a
science/engineering perspective to illustrate the extreme damage that
was done and is currently being done, which serves to illustrate the
real dilemma in our current Guyanese society.
(1) The President of Guyana 's knowledge of science and technology is
extremely limited.
The President removed G$40 million from the already limited University
of Guyana (UG) budget, and simultaneously spending $50M (USD or GD 1000
M) to build a cricket stadium, and giving massive loans for building
hotels.
This occurred despite the President being fully aware that there is an
overall shortage and lack of modern lab facilities and instrumentation
for Engineering and Science students.
These deficiencies make it impossible to develop the necessary
scientific human resources needed to build, manage, and maintain a
majority of our natural resources/assets.
The lack of urgency in understanding and correcting these deficiencies
can only mean that in the future more and more of our untapped
resources will be controlled by international forces (e.g. Barama, who
pays no taxes etc.) and the local reigning political class, with little
benefit to the country.
(2) The calculation of water requirements and energy balances should be
in the forefront when bio-fuel (ethanol, bio-diesel) projects are
discussed .The economic feasibility in relevance to Guyana should also
be centred around whether the success of the Brazilian industry in the
area of bio-fuel is designed mostly for converting their un-storable
hydro-electric power to produce a more stable and usable form of
alternative energy (ethanol - from cane sugar, bio-diesel). Do we in
Guyana currently have a stable and cheap electricity source in Guyana
to make bio-fuel process economically feasible? Is the water resources
structured and mined to support such industry?
The government of Guyana should be spending money to develop cheap
hydro electric power (as Brazil , USA , Canada did), or solar energy,
before we can talk about feasible biofuels projects.
(3) The lack of trained engineers and scientists means that the human
resources to run future production plants that produce e.g. ethanol and
bio-diesel, places these potential industries' feasibility to be
implemented out of range.
As far back as 2003, it was expected that, for example, GUYSUCO needed
to have functional analytical instruments (eg. HPLC) to do analyses in
order to predict yields, cost, etc. However, it became common knowledge
that they had not had a functioning instrument for nearly a year!
How does an industry carry on without fully knowing how much they are
producing or expected to produce?
How can such an organisation even pursue future industrial expansion,
when it is incapable of properly determining all the factors and
parameters of even the current established process?
(4) Having a floating bridge on the Demarara River over the years has
lead to the river being silted, and as a result only at high tide can a
fully laden ship get by the bridge area of the river. The economic and
business downturn means that resources from up river are costly to
transport because it is time and tide dependent to get the products
(e.g. stones) to any international seaport.
The personnel in the Office of the President commissioned a report
(Environment Impact Assessment—Berbice River Bridge, Louis Berger
Report) to study the feasibility of putting a floating bridge on the
Berbice River.
The commission limited the scope of the study. The overriding statement
is that regular dredging is absolutely necessary to have a floating
bridge near the mouths of the Berbice and Canje Rivers. Dredging is not
in the regimented maintenance culture of this and past Guyanese
governments. The situation is even more difficult when there is a
floating bridge present. Further, a floating bridge at Crab Island is
going to mitigate the life of the tributary, the Canje River, and the
Berbice River itself.
Does a floating restrictive bridge at the mouth of two rivers make
sense? Does the PPP Government want to outdo the PNC – by silting two
rivers! Maybe this is a new achievement the PPP wants to be known for.
There is also an even greater possibility that these rivers, over the
years, will be silted and suffer the exact fate as the Demerara River,
which are: tide-dependent transportation, increase in transportation
cost, economic downturn (fishing will have to be done further out
etc.), and ecological problems.
These adverse outcomes are also possible in view of the adverse effects
seen at the local Demerara floating bridge.
The cost of opening and closing a bridge would contribute to the
transportation cost, for example, the bauxite industry for Aoraima and
Rusal. Do we want to make the cost of mining bauxite unredeemable?
(5) ‘Water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink' (recent World
Cricket Cup fiasco). Almost all the Government engineers are untrained
in water resources. They all claim to know about water resources
management, but the results prove otherwise. The same set of
politically connected engineers, who could not safeguard the Guyanese
people in 2003 flood, remains intact despite their continuous blunders.
What can Guyanese expect - the same result again in 2007?
GUYSUCO/Government is building a “modern” estate in Skeldon. The
question should be asked whether they made the necessary calculations
as to the amounts and sources of the water (Mr. Ramlall, GC,
27/04/2007), Mr. Ali and Mr. Ragwen (SN, (08/05/2007), Mr.Sohan ( SN,
12/05/2007)) needed to plant those massive amounts of sugar canes. Can
they say where they are going to get the water required for this
project? Are they going to drain the Canje River dry? Have they not
already put enough stress on the good old Canje River?
The call for a proper Ministry of Water Resources (in the land of many
waters) in the government and in Engineering Faculty at UG continues to
go unheard.
Water is a natural resource, and if we cannot use its abundance to
further our national development, then that is an indicator that we
seriously lack any vision for the future.
The list of insanity is extensive and goes on from mud sea defence dam
in West Berbice, to total give away of forest resources, flooding
everywhere etc.
We cannot diversify and grow the economy without the proper groundwork
being laid (e.g. UG), that is, to encourage the growth of our own
academics, scientists, and engineers - that is raising the education to
the highest standards. The current political culture of having
unqualified technical persons who are politically connected in a
technical position is counter productive and will spell the death of
the nation. When will the historical lessons of our colossal failures
and blunders be learned?
After 41 years we do not have cheap hydro-electricity, we do not have
constant water supply, we have deplorable security for all, declining
educational standards, increase in poverty and a population reduced to
numbers below critical mass to make the country barely functional.
Sadly, the political class has shown no evidence of changing or being
revolutionary in its approach to encourage national development of any
sort. Therein lie our reasons for the nation's underdevelopment. Unless
the political mindset is changed, we will always be a nation of lost
potential and opportunities. Our people will be forced to continue
flights in order to escape the economic plight caused by the political
blights in our midst.
Anand Daljeet
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