Getting past the bragging was easy.
The National Budget is a tool for providing communal necessities- roads, water wells, public schools and hospitals – for the population.
So, it is intrinsically tied to the National Census which is a literal count of people by gender and locales to determine the volume and gender specifics of these needs.
Now, if a Government, for whatever reasons, routinely delays the release of census data, mandated by law to be conducted every ten years, then we won’t get the results of the 10th year until years after. The 2002, 2012 and 2022 census reports verify this.
We understand the activity between the initial and final product and the adjustments that may trail. What is hard to accept is, within the 20 years of 2002 to 2022, a system to reduce re-categorization of preliminary to permanent data has not been devised.
This makes the annual budget inherently inaccurate, as practice. Post budget adjustments for increases are routine for this team, though we can’t say we’ve seen adjusting for downward projection, reduced revenue forecasts or re-allocation to areas in dire need, during these post -published periods.
So, when the Finance Minister made the Budget Speech a swagger fest, we were thinking he must be thinking we are not thinking.
Of course you have sunk more water wells and added more electricity than “ever before” because your system under- counted the number of consumers in need of these amenities and remains in perpetual adjustment as a matter of procedure.
It’s laughable, too, to pretend that you’re doing this in the interest of modernizing Guyana – especially when we look at Georgetown, the face of the nation and its aesthetically displeasing structures, their over-imposing scales on insanitary surroundings. Did we add the Venezuelan and Brazilian night walkers, drooping and stumbling drug users wobbling through routinely disorderly traffic, crisscrossing those with obvious mental health challenges?
Every year there is the tease of modern Healthcare to enhance the public hospitals.
A few weeks ago, a 22 year-old 6-7 month pregnant woman jumped from the third floor of Public Hospital Georgetown. Even the windows are accessible in this modern era of sealed/restricted windows for safety and pressurized infection control, well after multiple Budget pledges to modernize. Not sure why the state news organ, Chronicle, didn’t carry the tragedy, or why other media softened ‘jump’ with reportedly.
And while we’re talking census and perpetual adjustment in population, let’s look at some of the reasons and why…in our opinion.
Back when there was a Minister of Home Affairs/ Ambassador, named Ronald Gajraj, there were copious complaints about him trafficking in visas to Bangladeshis, East Indians from India and Mainland Chinese; all of whom blended seamlessly into our six peoples and are now being counted in Guyana’s census, per opinion.
The theme ‘Putting People First’ – then the pause for some needling- may have elicited the sentiment sought from APNU – the heckling and claims to ownership. But, in it was lots of irony given that the longest ruling Party is the PPP and the social deficits of the nation have existed for as long as its tenure…as if People were never Put First.
For the record, Putting People First was popularized in the political arena by the Bill Clinton Al Gore ticket back in the 90’s. The aphorism, ‘nothing new under the sun’, holds true here. So much for small potatoes.
But getting back to the 2026 Budget where there are promises of expanding opportunities for all Guyanese. The promised concrete drains, as an upgrade, may be nifty but not if your residence is a squatting slum with bridges that are really fat concrete pipes.
Hopefully, there is numeric/census data on the squatting communities to include them in the Opportunities pledge. With the proud declaration of the largest budget ever, we’re looking to see how the chances for improvement flow to the marginally and completely unhoused.
This is the population that has no access to postal delivery because they have no official address, though they’ve been at their squatting lot for decades. We’re sure government knows that no fixed address (NFA) creates all sorts of exclusion and marginalization, not the least of which is employment, voting, or opening a bank account.
Education, too, is more than the completion of school houses and the availability of broadband and computers.
There was a time when Guyana was deemed the Breadbasket of the Region…and we especially ignore the ignorant interpretation of those jaded by insular politics who scoff at the moniker, who find it hard to celebrate the country’s place in history because of ideology and outright racism.
Many of us were fortunate to have lived in Guyana when teaching was a not just a job but a profession. We remember when the Teachers Training College had academic stalwarts on faculty and graduated only those who passed a curriculum crafted to educate.
We remember when the University of Guyana had a reputable Pharmacy curriculum, multi lingual curricula and, like Guyana School of Agriculture, attracted a healthy foreign student contingent.
We remember, too, when Caribbean/ West Indian police and soldiers came to train with our forces, when Public Hospital Georgetown provided training across the spectrum of nursing for the Caribbean and Belize.
We say all this to put the promises of improvement into perspective because it’s more than just piling on appearances. There was a Guyana renowned for its blue print and its place in Regional history has been engraved because of this vanguard effort.
And now that we’re in the age of oil, with a well known foundation of systemic exclusion and a domestic politics platform that profiles disunity, we have to tie the projections of job availability to a more specific identifier, one by race which will bring more reference to gender reporting and a clearer picture of how the opportunities for all will be dispensed.
We’ll add that reporting by race is not novel. The leading Western countries, members of your organization, the UN’s International Labor Organization- ILO, do.
In Guyana, it’s is the Government that reports its economic data and not independent agencies which makes it, at best, usually suspect.
Per Global Economy and a reporting of 49.63% participation in the work force with a 10.16% national unemployment rate, it would be far more informative to list participation by race and gender which may assist in addressing social concerns and measures for improvement.
Most of all, it would highlight wage gaps between race, gender and age groups, all of which are being championed by the UN’s International Labor Organization…of which Guyana is a member.
What shouldn’t be overlooked, during this tactical turmoil of distraction, is the primary geographic residential areas of Afro Guyanese. With the continuous decline in their population numbers, their comparatively reduced participation in the labor force, it is more important, now, to do so.
There are growing foreign communities, apart from the ones brought in by Gajraj, that are displacing Afro Guyanese, the 2nd population of Guyana, brought as slaves and built the country’s infrastructure from the days of the Dutch through the British, from Seawall to all the polders and kokers, cane fields and rice fields railway lines ,through sinking lantern posts.
Many migrated to the Georgetown, post slavery, to become pioneers of the nation’s civil service and teaching professions, holders of union jobs, nurses, newspaper journalists.
It is a strong and proud legacy, now victim of systemic and structural racism…seemingly.
There was once a thriving middle class in Guyana that was comprised of Afro Guyanese. They were forged into existence by the determination of predecessors who had carved a path out of servitude through embracing education.
For decades they have been systemically depleted, demoted and targets of economic exclusion.
A large part of this, we ascribe to the absence/abandonment of the political robustness that once framed our communities through promoting a specific ideology, guiding policy and collective respect.
Makes it all the more necessary to revive the Party that once housed Black stalwarts like those of its founding body.
