Your Eyewitness is in a nostalgic mood, so he’s gonna reflect a bit at the way it was when the PNC were in office. It’s also meant to remind the unwary how it might be again if – by some miracle (nightmare?!) – they’re allowed back in!! One of the most significant outcomes of the first Burnham PNC regime was to push so many folks to flee that North America became “Region 11”!! Today there are more Guyanese living there than “back home”. Seeing the important roles other diasporas played in the development of their countries of origin, you’d think the PNC of 2015 would’ve tried get them to return and invest.
When the PPP had been elected in 1992, a horde of expats had turned up to “help”. However, unlike other diasporas, they didn’t return with capital that coulda been harnessed to their newfound knowledge base to launch industries. And this was the role the Jagan Government wanted them to play. Our diasporans instead wanted to “help” with their skills in various capacities in local institutions. In other words, they wanted big jobs, but wouldn’t say so!! This created considerable resentment – and a backlash among locals, who wanted to know why jobs would go to those who’d “fled”. It didn’t help when the idealistic Dr Jagan offered them a token
$1 salary!!
Sadly, however, even though when PNC returned in 2015 the Region 11 diaspora had become quite loaded, the PNC were so constitutionally anti-business that they never capitalised on that asset. They only saw them as milch cows, rather than cows that could be encouraged to create a herd of investment. The PNC so muddied the (investment) waters that, even with us today becoming the fastest growing economy in the world, we still can’t get our Guyanese diaspora to start investing, and take advantage of their Guyanese status giving them priority in our Local Content regime.
So, what are we supposed to do?? The PPP Government gotta become totally focused on building our stock exchange into a world-class organization. And then encouraging the children of the diaspora to invest for returns that’d make the DOW seem like a piker. And that’s the paradigm change that has to be made – quit courting the old diaspora that Burnham has chased away. They are folks who’re still conservative from their background; so, while they have made their money from real estate they can feel and touch, they’re not gonna liquidate and invest in Guyana.
But their children will!! They have grown up on making intangible investments in stocks and bonds…they can understand the lingo – and the opportunities. Even the PNC snorting fire can’t scare them away!!
…colour?
Everyone knows “politics is dirty”. But “dirty” comes in all colours, and it’s particularly irking when the colour green gets dragged in the dirt, as it was by the PNC when they took office – along with the AFC back then. Green is, after all, the colour that’s associated nowadays with a clean environment – thanks a lot to the work of Jagdeo and his LCDS. So how could the PNC drag green into Guyana’s gutter politics? A clue is the shade of green they chose – that of the slime found in the gutters.
Your Eyewitness, of course, talking about Granger painting the Office of President – THE ENTIRE BUILDING!! – slime green!! Obviously, it has nothing to do with the environment and being clean, but everything to do with slime green being the colour of the PNC from its inception! And to rub in where they were coming from, they planted green palm trees in a “beautification” programme across the country.
Your Eyewitness thanks God that the PPP didn’t paint and plant everything red when they returned! We all woulda seen red!!
…flock
The reticence by some in the Government to not condemn the genocide that’s being committed by Israel in Gaza has been dubbed by wags as the “Silence of the sheep”.
But surely, even sheep bleated as the shears were wielded?
