First World status

Guyana becoming a developed country is not merely an optimistic hope, but a doable and achievable reality.
The current sold-out 2022 International Energy Conference and Expo is an example of incoming investments that can propel this nation into First World status.
To do this, we support President Dr Irfaan Ali when he said at the conference that “there shall be no turning back” from Guyana’s energy agenda.
To quote the Head of State: “Bringing down the cost for energy is about creating the space and opportunity for the development of a world-class manufacturing, industrial and agro-processing sector. That is how real benefits come to the people, that is how real benefits come to the country. When we can invest and create the opportunity to improve competitiveness and expand business opportunity. There shall be no turning back from this energy agenda.”
Before the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration assumed the primary executive office in the land in October of 1992, Guyana was rated on international developmental indices as being on par with Haiti. Graphed during the People’s National Congress (PNC) Administration as the least developed nation in the world, with a crippling debt burden, Guyana’s development under the astute leadership provided by successive PPP/C Presidents was rapid.
After a relatively short time span of approximately two decades, Guyana was being recognised by the world as a middle-income developing country, and described by Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines as “The only shining star in the Caribbean”.
The popular prognosis heralded great things for this nation, because the focus of the PPP/C Administrations – then and now – is to make Guyana a modern and developed country; and Guyana had indeed been inexorably moving from a middle-income developing country to becoming, in the not-too-distant future, a developed country.
However, for the country to achieve such a status, it has to be a joint effort by all stakeholders working in conjunction and cooperation with Government. There have been, in the past, multiple successful partnerships between the Government, Private Sector, and other stakeholders to work together to create of Guyana a modern society.
The transformation of the national socio-economic landscape has not been easy, because there are elements of negativity who are intent on stymieing every developmental initiative.
Regrettably, this progressive developmental paradigm took a relentless and rapid retrogression – in every sector – with the advent of another PNC-led Government in 2015.
Post-2015 elections, a relentless reversal of Guyana’s developmental trajectory under the coalition Government administration brought this country to an almost bankrupt state, with a debt burden of billions of dollars.
One of the worst disincentives to investment in Guyana is the high energy costs, which send overheads skyrocketing, especially in the manufacturing sector; and the PPP/C Government had attempted to address this problem through hydropower, but had reached the usual developmental roadblocks from the PNC-led A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Opposition, which used every armament in their arsenal to shoot down the project.
It is a proven fact that not having cheap energy is one of the most prohibitive factors that have impeded Guyana’s manufacturing sector from surging.
However, despite the setback with the Amaila Falls Hydro Project, the recently-elected President Irfaan Ali is adamant that the pursuit of alternative energy will be prioritised so that Government can provide cheap energy for the development of a strong industrial manufacturing sector and a strong processing sector. With a progressing agricultural sector that can easily develop an agro-industrial complex, Guyana is once again climbing global developmental graphs.
Successive PPP/C Governments have always held out an outstretched hand to the Opposition and all stakeholders in the nation, with scant success of cooperation from the joint Opposition; and history will record their negative contributions to the development of this nation. The ball is in the Opposition’s court.