Nothing is more infuriating than headlines like these – a Guyana Brazil Alliance – screaming access to land in a country where so many never get these opportunities.
Don’t get us wrong.
We understand the principle of Foreign Direct Investment – FDI, how ‘neigbor shoring’ and geoplolitcal alignment bolsters a country, in addition to the actual world alignment gains of a partnership such as this.
But that doesn’t precluded questioning how the government will handle the significant population of the unhoused and unemployed until the Alliance benefits kick in.
We’ve heard their athletic political explanations, Foreign Direct Investment = Poverty Reduction messaging that recites a strategy of their affiliates.
But these are Western entities whose practices they tout, not follow.
These countries have institutionalized the reporting frequency of vital data, monthly employment figures and by race.
This granular reporting, not followed, is especially vital to any improvement in Guyana where racial inequities are the subject of complaints and suggested reform at United Nations.
We know that Census Data, the life’s blood of legitimate allocation of resources, are on practiced delay.
When the nation’s financial health is delivered more as performance than report, we detect a morbidity in poor disguise.
And driving through the nation’s capital all but screams the stories of the lives of the subjects of the choreographed performance.
Poverty is visual. Unemployment is visual. No where to live is visual. Living in squalor is visual. All of these question the foreign direct investment decision.
They particularly question why we are learning more about it from Brazil’s Oil and Gas, from a gloss over in the Guyana Chronicle and not through a robust query by the collective Opposition, if not its primary, then its secondary elements.
We had read about the proposed engagement in 2022.
But we never heard a query on the mechanics of the planned operation from the Opposition of that era. There was never a submission of a researched counter proposal, representative of a credible alternative.
That would not have been outside of the expectation of an Opposition whose actual function goes well beyond hinting at wrong doing while failing to offer studied pre-emptive solutions.
We are not economic prudes nor political neophytes. But we do know foreign direct investment neither immedialey nor directly impacts the unemployed nor provides for the unhoused.
So there has to be a happy place in its middle.
There has to be some Political Opposition monitoring of those who are administering the Guyana Brazil alliance.
By that, we mean monitoring that secures a seat at the Guyana Brazil alliance table and not hinting at malpractice when absence form the table is malpractice in itself.
We don’t know that the inclusion protocol for a project this massive, that affects national patrimony, should be politicized.
But we do know that Guyana is still a Parliamentary Democracy with an Article 51 in its Constitution which dictates mandatory participation of the Opposition in national affairs.
We understand that Foreign Direct Investment yields trickle down benefits. But trickling to address our most chronic ills in the fastest growing economy in the world should not be a plan.
Re-skilling and up-skilling levels of capabilities in the chronically unemployed should be simultaneous and ongoing with the Brazil Alliance implementation.
And this brings us to the hiring contracts that would have been executed.
Stipulations of local hiring and training is generally part of FDI engagement. Mandatory rations in hiring numbers is another critical element. Shadowing the trainer is implicit in contract training, to name a few.
And all of these things demand Opposition oversight.
How about the country’s ten regions and simultaneous direct planning to upgrade and, in too many, institute basic requirements like drive-able roads and transportation that meet safety requirements.
Georgetown, the face of the nation needs more than a face lift.
There has been a direct, if not deliberate assault, on its aesthetic appearance.
The collision of development, urbanization, the abandonment of zoning laws, poor infrastructure and dense traffic patterns make for incomprehensible awfulness.
We say this with nostalgia, as benefactors of its once idyllic existence that used to inspire ambitions for betterment as we rode through those streets to school.
The overall point is that Foreign Direct Investment -FDI- has to be a timely plan with returns that will provide encompassing benefits for every level in society, every region, every industry, for these are the components of the country and the reason that FDI is even possible.
And, it is not a standalone capital inflow caused by the genius of a specific Party.
It is the existence of the patrimony, inherent national assets, that attracted FDI suitors and the dowry should be shared accordingly.
The collective Opposition has an elected responsibility to take its seat at the Brazil Alliance table.
