Apart from tourism boost
Resuscitated national service at Omai can relieve unemployment - Joe Singh
By Shirley Thomas
Guyana Chronicle
April 7, 2004
A FORMER Director General has outlined a plan through which a resuscitated Guyana National Service (GNS) can use the legacy of Omai Gold Mines to relieve unemployment and bolster tourism.
Delivering the feature address last week at the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) Annual General Meeting (AGM), retired Major General Joe Singh, expressed confidence that an institution such as the one he headed from 1981 to 1990 can play a significant role in promoting Guyana as a tourist destination and set standards worthy of emulation.
Towards that objective, he advocated the return of a form of National Service, given the challenges faced by the tourism sector.
Mr. Singh unveiled a vision of mutual relationship between the tourism sector and the proposed new GNS-type entity, in which the infrastructure already in place at the Omai mines site would distinctly serve as an asset.
“As an example, I have a vision of Omai Mines in the Essequibo that, if it does close in 2005, as has been announced, the infrastructure there can support up to 500 youths, instructors and teaching and administrative facilities,” he told the gathering at Le Meridien Pegasus in Georgetown.
He envisages the new institution being used creatively and productively to conduct vocational training through an adapted form of three to six months of national service, specially tailored to train hundreds of unemployed or unemployable youth in remedial and compensatory education, coupled with job-related vocational training.
Possible job creation, Singh said, can include “those construction activities that can absorb large numbers, namely the proposed (Cricket) World Cup Stadium; a deep water harbour; road-building to pave the road to Lethem; and work on other unsurfaced roads, utilising the millions of tons of stone already stockpiled at Omai.”
Other measures, he suggested, could give more youths specific training for homesteading in the Berbice intermediate savannahs- Kibilibiri, Eberoabo, Kimbia and Ituni.
“And, supported by appropriate, affordable technology and technical advice, they may be employed in commercial agro-forestry linked to proposed core investor fast-growing Paulonia plantations and inter-crop with those fruit, vegetable and vine crops, along with the rearing of small ruminants, in keeping with available and future local and overseas markets. Farm to market roads based on the upgrading of the existing and lateritic trails will lead to a hub at Linden where processing for value added, proper packaging and shipment to internal and external markets, can be co-located,” he added.
Singh said yet other job training can focus on providing skills for the tourism sector, interior roads and trails driver training, boat handlers, hospitality skills, information technology and languages can build on core competencies in functional literacy, personal discipline, conflict management, personal hygiene, human relations, awareness and prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), prophylactic treatment against malaria and leishmaniasis, and knowledge of Guyana’s history, religions and culture.
He said the environment at Omai is conducive to such programmes and he also has a vision of extra-mural facilities linked to the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE), the Georgetown Technical Institute, Carnegie School of Home Economics and Guyana School of Agriculture being co-located there.
Further, Singh said, on the assumption that the mines will be closed next year, Omai, as a tourist destination, has an airstrip, is accessible by bus from Georgetown and can provide an outdoor display museum with information on the history of the gold mining industry in Guyana.
“You can also see the capybaras bathing in the Essequibo River, listen to the howler monkeys, spot deer and jaguarondis around the complex, view parrots and macaws over-flying the airstrip in the late afternoon, and experience the contemplative, relaxing, and almost spiritual experience of a moonlight paddle along the river,” he said.
Dwelling on the challenges as well as the way forward for Guyana's tourism sector, he said that the question to be asked is whether Guyana has an enabling environment for its tourism product that visitors find appealing.
Noting that the tourism sector has a role to play in problem-solving initiatives, Singh alluded to what he saw as "pressing matters that must be attended to in a much more decisive and systemic manner."
“We have to be concerned about the cause and effect of rising crime, drug trafficking, incidence of violence, joblessness and the evident decline in functional literacy, ethical behaviour and national discipline - all of which are fundamental to the creation of a stable and enabling environment, conducive to tourism," he said.
Singh posited that the tourism sector, as one that has a broad-based constituency and an international network, needs also to invest in initiatives to strengthen civil society; to develop its advocacy in matters which relate to the national interest, such as good governance, reform in the processes that are fundamental to the establishment, growth and efficient functioning of State institutions.
He also cited the devolution of authority and responsibility to local and community councils - assuming that their capacity for leadership, decision-making and accountability would have reached acceptable levels. Those bodies would then have a real sense of empowerment in the affairs of State and in their future.
On this note, he cautioned, that there are threats which, if not arrested and dealt with condignly, can lead to destabilisation, loss of national morale, despondency and despair - all of which will have negative impacts on tourism.
It is here that he sees National Service filling the niche, offering opportunities for innovative, creative, "out of the box" thinking that can result in many positives for the sector.
"As former Director General of the National Service from 1981-1990, I can say, without fear of contradiction, that had we retained the training and production centres of Kimbia, Koriri, Tumatumari, Konawaruk, Papaya, they would have evolved in their own right into tourism centres, and continued the catalytic role they played in the training of our young people in the ethics and skills, and in instilling a level of commitment to the national interest, civic and personal empowerment in keeping with the motto: 'What the mind of man can conceive and believe, he can achieve'," he said.
Anticipating that there will be persons who will paint negative pictures about National Service, Singh reminded that the para-military environment was, beyond doubt, conducive to the inculcation of discipline, teamwork and camaraderie - regardless of ethnicity or social standing.
He cited Captain Gerry Gouveia as a classic example of a fine product of the Guyana National Service. A stint in the GNS assisted greatly in shaping Gouveia’s career, Singh said.