Don’t mistake success with licensed corruption

Dear Editor,
Guyanese professionals and entrepreneurs need to start asking the hard questions about what type of success we truly value.
There is nothing to be gained by congratulating or celebrating a man sanctioned or accused of smuggling billions in gold out of the country. That isn’t the definition of a successful businessman – that is an economic vandal trying to pass off a hustle.
As the nation bleeds due to underhand deals, the business environment for us all suffers. Investors become leery and wary, local industries cannot grow, and every honest businessman must struggle twice as hard to show that Guyana is still an environment where integrity in business can exist. The so-called “moguls” that are benefitting from smuggling and other illegal activities are not opening doors for us; they are keeping us out.
Success is not building on the law; it is building within the law. As the next generation, we cannot continue to romanticise scandal or anything short of excellence. In applauding the movement of tonnes of the country’s gold in suspicious and criminal ways, what we are really doing is saying that credibility and ethics do not matter – they do. In business, reputation is everything. Lose that, and you’ve lost everything.
Guyana is not a place to smuggle to; it is a place to build and create and succeed within the law. Guyana is a place to innovate and be sustainable. Guyana is a place to build businesses and enterprises that can last and grow and prosper. Guyana is not for smugglers, even if they seem successful.
Success is not a sleight of hand. Corruption is not clever. It is cowardice passed off as achievement.
We have to stop it. Let’s draw the line – and start building a Guyana where integrity is the standard, not the exception.

Yours sincerely,
Philip Inshanally