There’s a whole lotta folks from the Opposition APNU/AFC benches weeping and wailing and wringing their hands about “being left behind”. Well, we’re in a new, liberalized world now, baby…and no one’s gonna be giving away handouts!! You gotta get up and get in this world. But it’s now clear that all the PNC types were concerned about were get-rich schemes that involved taking the nation’s assets for free – and then flipping to outsiders for astronomical sums. Never mind that, apart from swelling their bank accounts, nothing’s injected in the local economy to circulate that wealth.
Well, under President Irfaan Ali’s administration, we’re learning how REAL development takes off. Seeing that the Government was sticking to its Manifesto promise to launch massive infrastructural projects, one local businessman – now being criticised! – had shown what it takes to launch successful businesses. All it took was a bit of common sense to ask, “What goods and services gonna be demanded by those “infrastructural projects”?” And the answer goes to the nub of the much discussed and analyzed “entrepreneurial phenomenon” the PNC’s talking about – but NEVER encouraged because of their anti-business stance and their compulsions for the “quick buck”.
The answer, of course, would be the identification of NEEDS that could be satisfied — which would then provide jobs and, not so coincidentally, generate profits for the folks with the vision and the guts to take risks!! In Guyana, some of the identified infrastructural projects were the two massive concrete bridges across the Corentyne and Demerara Rivers; the highway to Brazil; the Deep Water Harbour in the estuary of the Berbice River, etc.
What do all of these projects need? If you answered “concrete!”, dear reader, go to the head of the class! And what does concrete need? Stones, sand and cement, that’s what!! So, what did the aforementioned businessman invest in? The soon-to-be largest quarry in the Caribbean — in Region 7!! Now some may say we already got quarries in Guyana – but you only gotta think back as to how often we hear about “stone shortages” to realize we can’t afford to have such a constraint put a crimp on our development drive. On the cement front, while we don’t seem to have its main ingredient, limestone, it does make sense to import the raw materials and add value right here.
Your Eyewitness remembers there was a cement plant launched in Berbice a while back, and maybe the one announced in 2021 in Reg 2 is facing the same problem?? Cheap energy?? Well, the O&G plant’s gonna solve that!!
Be that as it may, a hat tip goes out to entrepreneurs. Your Eyewitness hopes the PNC’s gonna get with the programme!! And quit whining!!
…laxity
President Ali has put his stamp on his administration — and it’s a “no-nonsense” one. Some folks had figured that since Granger was an army man, he’d have been quite disciplined in getting things done. They forget the Sanctimonious Gangster had never seen action in his DECADES of army service!! The man never HAD to get anything done – and has NEVER gotten anything done!
Ali, on the other hand, had been the young go-getter Housing Minister who’d also held the Ministry of Tourism! He led one of the biggest housing drives the Caribbean has ever seen. And once the PNC finally stepped aside, he’s been literally on the go nonstop. He doesn’t seem to have a “pause button”!! Call him the “Energiser”!!
Now he’s showing a further dimension – he expects results from the people serving in Government. So those Ministers and Department Heads who’re falling behind the eighth ball better look out! Their heads may soon be rolling like goatsh*t in the wind!!
…or sent ahead??
Your Eyewitness was quite taken aback to read that the ex-mayor of GT’s one of the nine persons funded by the Govt of India for their Know India Program (KIP)!! It’s for youths between 18-30, and that fella’s definitely OVER thirty!! Graft??
