Successive People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regimes have shown over the years that they are not interested in genuinely working with some sections of this society. Instead, they appear more interested in taking others’ ideas and using them as their own in decision-making. The list of examples is long. This is a troubling and dangerous development that we, as Guyanese, must stand together to expose and demand our equal share at the table.
The Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) has experienced this firsthand. The Constitution of Guyana protects the right of workers to join a trade union of their choice and to engage in collective bargaining. Yet the PPP continues to sideline some unions and undermine both unions’ and workers’ right to self-determination by refusing to have labour sit at the table as the legitimate representative of workers to negotiate improved wages and working conditions. That disregard strikes at the heart of workers’ rights.
Before oil production began, Professor Clive Thomas laid out a proposal in 2018 that oil revenues should be converted into cash grants as a mechanism to redistribute resources directly to the people. In 2019, before oil revenues began flowing into the nation’s coffers, the GTUC embraced Thomas’ proposal and expanded it into a comprehensive 19-point agenda touching almost every sector of society. A copy of that proposal was given to then President David Granger and then Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo.
The GTUC addressed direct and indirect benefits, improvements to healthcare systems across the country, upgrades to health centres, and the creation of technical institutes to equip Guyanese to work in the oil economy. The GTUC called for the reinstitution of free education from nursing to university, investment in the University of Guyana and Critchlow Labour College, restoration of the environment, assistance with home improvement, and numerous other national priorities. Today, we see many of these very initiatives being implemented by the PPP — albeit in a discriminatory manner in some instances — yet labour is nowhere part of the process. Anyone can examine labour’s 19-point agenda and see the clear parallels.
If we are good enough to have our ideas copied by the PPP without acknowledgment or credit, then we are certainly within our right to publicly tell our stories and remind all and sundry — including the PPP — that we are good enough to sit at the table. Those who conceptualised these ideas best understand the conditions and principles that shaped them. They are critical to moving those ideas from conceptualisation to effective implementation. Excluding the architects while exploiting their work is not only deceitful, but it weakens national development.
Over the years, we have seen the PPP benefit from ideas, policies, and programmes that were not theirs but were first placed in the public domain by others. Take the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) under the Desmond Hoyte government. The PPP condemned it while in opposition. Yet that same programme delivered growth to this nation well into the late 1990s under PPP leadership — growth for which the party took credit for. Even then, Desmond Hoyte and the People’s National Congress (PNC), while in opposition, were excluded from meaningful participation in national decision-making on the continuity of that programme.
When the programme ran its course and ideas were exhausted, the economy was outsourced to narco-trafficking, resulting in increased crime and near collapse due to turf wars, extrajudicial killings, and other forms of criminal activity, along with rising poverty and deeper exclusion of sections of society. In the 1990s, Hoyte not only castigated executive lawlessness but also had to take to the streets to demand inclusion, which ultimately led to constitutional reform that enshrined the principle of “inclusionary democracy.” Today, we are no closer to that ideal; exclusion remains the order of the day.
The nation is also witnessing elements of Forbes Burnham’s developmental vision for road infrastructure and inland expansion being advanced, with no credit attributed. This reminds me of the 8 March 2000 Agreement between the GTUC and Government of Guyana. GTUC submitted to then President Bharrat Jagdeo a Development Plan for an area in Loo Creek on the Linden/Soesdyke Highway. That plan included the creation of an entire community: housing, agricultural areas, use of water from the creek for energy, an industrial estate, playgrounds, and more.
The land was identified, documentation completed, and the proposal was formally lodged. The government retains a copy of that submission. Yet the land was never granted to the GTUC but instead to a PPP ally. Today, similar concepts are being pursued along the highway.
Even in education, the pattern is evident. Karen Abrams returned to Guyana and invested her family’s time and resources to bring STEM education to our young people and prepare them for the 21st century. When she arrived, little, if anything, was happening in this field. She took her desire to give back to her people and created an infrastructure bar none. Recently, President Irfaan Ali announced a US$100 million arrangement with ExxonMobil to provide STEM education, yet nowhere was there mention of Abrams, who pioneered this programme in Guyana. There is nothing wrong with expanding such a programme nationally, but excluding the pioneer while attempting to replicate her work is fundamentally wrong.
Across this country, the intellectual authors of policies and programmes designed to move Guyana forward are repeatedly being shut out. Their ideas are placed in the public domain, adopted by the PPP, and implemented without inclusion of those who conceived them. This is one reason many projects struggle to achieve their full potential. Those who conceptualise ideas — especially when rooted in empowerment and national benefit — are naturally more invested in seeing them succeed from conception through implementation and maintenance.
The oil wealth now being administered does not belong to the PPP; it belongs to all the people of Guyana. Yet what we are witnessing is a scattershot approach that creates the appearance of development while sidelining inclusive partnership. The creators of many of these ideas remain outside the room.
Society must take note of this conduct and condemn it. Let us stand together and demand our rightful place at the table, in keeping with Article 13 of the Constitution of Guyana.
