An appeal to Guyanese cricket visitors
Freddie Kissoon column
Kaieteur News
April 1, 2007
Cricket World Cup 2007 constitutes one of the most important events in the historical calendar of this country. Obviously, it will attract a huge number of Guyanese, the majority of which (I would say about 99%) left these shores for one reason only – they wanted a better life for themselves or because of their children.
So many of them that have come back to see this fantastic event, left this country a long time ago. One such person is the son of my friend, Boyo Ramsaroop. He migrated in the seventies when he was a little boy. I didn't and could not recognise him on Friday evening at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition. He is now a fully grown man in his late thirties or early forties.
The visiting Guyanese will be told of the wonderful achievements that characterize present day Guyana. They will be shown what certain people want them to see. There will be invitations to dine at the finest hotels in Georgetown. They will be flown to exotic resorts that look like the romantic islands of the Caribbean. Ministers, other Government functionaries and party fanatics will regale them with the glorious things they have done for Guyana and of course the propaganda and the indoctrination will follow.
One hopes that these visiting Guyanese will make a commonsensical and logical separation between leadership of Guyana and the country, Guyana itself.
Failure to do so can result in a tremendous disservice to all those who stayed behind, endured unspeakable hardships and are still trying to change this land so it can have an enduring future despite an unchanging political environment, the same political circumstances that have caused them to leave in the first place, only that the actors have changed.
Those that will be shown the physical landscape of Guyana should know that during their stay here for the Guyana leg of CWC 2007, there is the other side of this great, beautiful country. It is the dark side; the hidden dimensions that also tell the truth of the reality of their country.
This truth is important for them to know because in knowing it, they can contribute to a more developed and brighter Guyana. It certainly cannot be morally right for visiting Guyanese from Europe or North America to leave these shores praising what they have seen without trying to see what is not pleasant, not pleasing, not inviting in the hope that the negatives of Guyana they can help to eradicate.
It certainly cannot be morally right for those who live in freedom and economic comfort in highly developed societies to come to Guyana to see cricket and within a week or two tell us what a grand country we have without seeing the aspects of life here that make people want to leave just as how they wanted to leave and left from the sixties when the disturbances flared right through to the seventies when Burnham began to show his true colours, and into the eighties, when Guyana's political economy virtually collapsed.
What are the parts of Guyana that our visitors will not see or hear about? That we have one of the most expensive electricity supplies in the world that is keeping the working people of this country in poverty. People who work for minimum wages have to pay at least five thousand dollars a month for electricity in a home that literally burns just a few fluorescent tubes and without a fridge and television.
I could show you the monthly electricity bill of dozens of citizens in this country that are five thousand dollars a month and lights are all they have in their bare home. The next time our visitors come to Guyana, they will see an interesting scenario - all business places with their own generators.
It does not make economic sense to have electricity from the national grid; it is too exorbitant. Their businesses will flop if they continue to dish out the huge monthly electricity payments.
Do our visitors know that since 1997 our economy has not grown? Those that sing the songs of development in their ears will not tell them this. Can Guyana have a future if we continue to experience negative growth? As I write this essay here, my home has been without water for three days. I have not watered the plants.
Some of them are dying. Those visitors who are reading this will know what I am talking about because they must have had the identical experience.
The Guyanese from abroad that are here to see CWC 2007 matches should ask themselves why they had water in every other CARICOM state to which they traveled to see cricket and not Guyana. The answer lies in money. Money we never have and money that we beg for all the time from friendly countries and international lending agencies. Our water system is being financed by the British.
The Guyanese would have noticed that since they deplaned at the airport that we don't have traffic lights. They are about to go up because India came to the rescue with a loan. The bureaucracy behind the granting of loans takes a long time so we couldn't have received the lights in time for CWC 2007.
Of course if Guyana had money, those traffic signals would have been there years ago.
Those Berbicians that have come home to see the cricket would have noticed that almost six years have gone since the election promise was made to build a structure over the Berbice River, but there is no bridge as yet.
The politicians that show them around Georgetown and whisper in their ears about the good things that are happening here will not tell them why in 2007 there isn't a Berbice Bridge.
We asked and begged, asked and begged and no international company, no international lending agency, no friendly government agreed to finance the bridge. In the end, a basic structure will go up with money raised locally, including a huge sum from the NIS .
Those who ran away from Burnham's rule and are now back to see cricket would know, if they have a conscience, that if Burnham had taken NIS funds to build a bridge, there would have been an outcry because the NIS resources are to pay old people when their working days are over, and poor Guyanese when they seek medical treatment.
But as in Burnham days, the present rulers do not listen. So what else our fellow Guyanese will not be shown or will not see? That our only university is one of the most run-down universities you can ever imagine. Yet in the 2007 national budget, Government's subvention to UG has been reduced by $60M.
Do our visitors know that our human resource index is the lowest in the Caribbean after Haiti? Do they know that during the Burnham days, Guyana was the poorest country after Haiti? Burnham died in 1985 yet that statistic hasn't changed up to this day.
Do our visitors know Guyana has one of the highest migration rates in the entire world? Yet against the background of mass exodus and an almost non-existent human resource base, we still retire people at 55. And with that low retirement age, where is the NIS going to get money to replenish its coffers after the whopping sum that has gone to build the bridge?
I appeal to our Guyanese cricket visitors not to be misled. There are a lot of positives that happened since the era when they went away. But dark clouds are still with us. They should speak up about the intrusion of politics into every aspect of life in Guyana. They should speak up about party domination and power obsession that are keeping back Guyana.
After CWC 2007 is over, they go back to better countries. At least they can raise their voices in the cause of a better Guyana.