Guyana is a world leader – it’s not just us, the whole world is saying so

An all-female surgical team is blazing new paths at GPHC, an achievement few countries can boast of. A few weeks ago, Guyana’s Gudakesh Motie spun his way into Cricket West Indies’ record books with the best ever spin bowling feat in the history of West Indies Test cricket. Last week, a Guyanese girl blazed her way to the championship in 800-metre racing in the Big Twelve in the US, an incubator for world champions. Anna Regina Multilateral is Caricom’s School of the Year 2022. Guyanese students dominated CXC 2022. President Irfaan Ali is a global leader for the world’s most aggressive regional food security plan, the 25X25 Initiative.
This is our Guyana, and the naysayers’ constant efforts to diminish our country is unable to taint our stardom.
Last week, on an official visit to Guyana, Lord Zac Goldsmith, the UK’s Minister of State for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment, enthusiastically declared that Guyana is a world leader when it comes to conservation of our environment. Guyana has been recognized before for its leadership in conservation of our natural environment. In 2010, the UN named President Bharrat Jagdeo “Champion of the Earth” for his leadership in conservation. Late last year, Guyana became the first country certified as an Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) country with exportable carbon credits. Recently, Guyana became the first country in the Americas to introduce MAXAR Technologies Crow’s Nest, providing Guyana with satellite capabilities to monitor oil and gas vessels operating offshore, and also logging activities onshore.
Last year, Guyana’s economy (GDP) grew at an unprecedented 63% to lead the world by far. This year, it is projected that Guyana’s GDP will by over 23%, and is expected to be the world’s leader in this regard again. It is expected that by the end of 2024, Guyana’s economy will expand a further 50% of what it was at the end of 2022. But the remarkable thing is that if we leave out OIL and GAS, Guyana still leads the world. Guyana is showing that while OIL and GAS can propel a country’s economic fortunes, it does not need to be merely an OIL and GAS economy. Based on size, Guyana is a leader in carbon credit resources. The US$220M earned between 2010 and 2014 from Norway from carbon credit sales and the more recent US$750M carbon credit sales to Hess Corporation now establish Guyana as the only country presently where carbon credit sales represent a significant part of a country’s economy. Soon VIASAT’s satellite over Guyana will add to the growth of the communication industry. In the meanwhile, the growth of the service industry is significantly contributing to the growth of GDP in Guyana.
Not to be outdone, the traditional economy is consolidating its place as a foundation of the long-term economy. Guyana’s agriculture industry continues to grow as the country attempts to build a food security base as part of our growing economy. Guyana wants to lead Caricom in reducing and even eliminating its dependence on imported food from outside the Region. The 25X25 Food Security Initiative is trying to ensure that, by 2025, Caricom can reduce food imports from outside of Caricom by 25%. More than 1,000 acres of corn and soya have been harvested already in 2022. In 2023, more than 2,000 acres of soya will be harvested at a yield that is comparable to the best-yielding soya countries in the world. This means that Guyana is already on the road to eliminating soya import, and therefore reducing the cost of stockfeed. Before long, Guyana will add to its list of exports by exporting and earning from soya. Even as this new crop for Guyana’s agriculture industry begins to flourish, Guyana, led by President Irfaan Ali, is introducing a new crop for this region – millet. Working with India, Guyana is adding millet to its large-scale crop production.
When the PPP and President Ali, during the 2020 elections campaign, promised they would ensure 50,000 new house lots are distributed between 2020 and 2025, the naysayers dismissed it as impossible. Yet, halfway along, Guyana expects to surpass the target. Despite the naysayers, the Guyanese people are believers. Even more important, almost 100% of house-lot owners have constructed or/are constructing their homes. This little country is teaching the world how to ensure that every family has a home of its own. Decades ago, Forbes Burnham promised to “Feed, Clothe and House the Nation”. For decades, Burnham led the country into poverty, with housing an impossible dream, citizens depending on barrels coming in from the diaspora for clothing and food. Now President Ali is leading his country with a housing programme that is the envy of nations in Caricom and the world over.
In all of this, Guyana, which in 1992 was among a handful of countries that were bankrupt by a debt burden of more than 750% its GDP and a debt servicing charge that consumed almost its entire foreign currency earnings on an annual basis, is presently among only a handful of countries that almost have no debt. One year of OIL earning now can wipe out Guyana’s debt. Guyana is demonstrating to countries around the world that it is possible to transform itself from a debt-ridden, bankrupt country to one that has no debt wrapped around its neck so tight that it suffocates. It is no joke, one of the global basket-case in the early 1990s is now a world leader in innovation and development.