…for development
There’s a lot of folks from the Opposition APNU/AFC benches wringing their hands about “being left behind”. Well, we’re in a new globalised world now…and no one’s gonna give away handouts. You gotta get up and compete in that world. But it’s now clear all that the PNC types were concerned about were get-rich schemes that involved taking the nation’s assets for free and then flipping them to outsiders for astronomical sums. Never mind that apart from swelling their bank accounts, nothing’s injected in the local economy to spread the 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, two local businessmen have shown what it takes to launch sustainable development. All it took was a bit of common sense to ask, “what goods and services will be demanded by those infrastructural projects?” The answer to that question goes to the heart of the much-discussed and analysed “entrepreneurial phenomenon” the PNC talked 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 BUSINESS 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? Cement, stones and sand, that’s what!! So what did the two aforementioned businessmen invest in? The soon-to-be largest quarry in the Caribbean, to be located in Region Seven, and a cement plant in Region Three!! Now some may say we already have some quarries in Guyana – but you only have to think back as to how quickly we hear about “stone shortages” to realise 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 new entrant could learn what happened there.
Be as it may, a hat tip goes out to these two entrepreneurs. Your Eyewitness hopes others follow suit to seize opportunities ahead.
And that the PNC quits whingeing!
…to cleanse GECOM?
Your Eyewitness was pleased to learn that GECOM’s CEO Lowenfield – who’d been charged for “public misconduct” for his role during the elections – had been sent on leave. He evidently had 141 days accumulated. But rather strangely this was only revealed by Chairwoman Claudette Singh AFTER the PSC called on her to reveal whether the Secretariat’s being sanitised prior to the LGE that’s scheduled next year. Which is nigh upon us!!
But what’s even stranger is that Singh announced he’d been replaced by the Dep CEO Roxanne Myers – who’s also been charged. It looks like Burnham’s prediction of “if one PNC man is removed, another Rasta will take his place” is being fulfilled! And there was no word on the other officials in GECOM who aided and abetted Mingo in his blatant electoral high crime of rigging!
This is outrageous! Singh says GECOM isn’t a “one-man operation”. True enough. Well, today, the Commission is meeting.
Holding another election with the same tainted officials and expecting a different outcome is insane!
…for COVID mutations
With the announcement of a new, mutated strain of COVID-19 identified in the UK, not surprisingly countries across the world – even Europe next door – are banning flights from the UK.
We better act now!!
