Development has never been a straight line. There have been setbacks in many cases. Those enterprising folks pursuing a particular course of development would pick themselves up after a setback and forge ahead.
Guyana has had its share of development but more recently there have been failures. More often than not, the failure is due to faulty planning. What saves the day is the fact that the country is awash in money. The result is that the impact of the setbacks is not readily felt.
The loss of investment is not felt although it is reflected in the wages and salaries paid to public servants and to some government employees. The most glaring failure is the wharf at Port Kaituma. Member of Parliament Sherod Duncan recently visited the site to highlight the extent of the failure.
Most Guyanese do not know where Port Kaituma is. They know precious little about the community and the important role it plays in the nascent manganese industry. Many only became aware of the community when the MV Barima sank beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean on July 18.
That vessel was en route to Port Kaituma from Georgetown. Most of the goods to that community reach there by river after a journey in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Guyana.
It is not an easy trip, especially in a rust bucket that had been plying the local rivers for eighty-seven years. The government knew that the time had come to retire the MV Barima so it purchased a vessel, MV Ma Lisha, from India, at a cost of US$12.6 million.
A special wharf was needed because Ma Lisha was a front-loading vessel. A contract was won by International Import and Suppliers, a local company founded and led by Parmeshwar Jagmohan in 2011. It was initially a goldmining operation.
The project was initially slated for completion in December 2023. The wharf was being constructed where a sawmill once operated. The project was slated for completion in December 2023. The consulting engineer was Caribbean Management and Engineering Consultants (CEMCO).
It is unclear whether this consultancy designed the wharf. There were apparently no geotechnical studies. That would have been necessary if piles were to be properly driven and load-bearing concrete poured to support the ensuing structures.
What resulted was a series of collapsed retaining walls and other constructions. Needless to say, the completion date has long passed, and the wharf is far from being completed. The government’s position on proper planning is coming back to haunt it. Millions of dollars have been spent on this project but there is nothing to show but the ruins of the failed construction.
There have been other failed attempts at development. There was the Skeldon Sugar Factory that remains a white elephant to this day despite billions of dollars in expenditure.
But even before this sugar factory, there were other projects, all of which have disappeared from the landscape. Guyana once had a cannery that canned fish, orange juice, tomato juice and some other products.
The major difference was that Guyana was not an oil producing nation back then. And the government of the day relied on its resources. Unreliable electricity led to the collapse of the cannery. Today, some five decades later, the local electricity supply remains unreliable. Guyana has gone so far as to rent two power ships, but power outage is still a daily companion.
Guyana also manufactured prefabricated houses. Some were used in Guyana as is evident in places like North Ruimveldt, South Ruimveldt, Tucville, Festival City, Melanie Damishana and other locations in the country.
Last week, a Jamaican took umbrage that his government had reached out to China for prefabricated houses in the wake of the recent hurricane that ravaged the island. The man’s contention was that a CARICOM country was producing prefabricated houses.
In the past Guyana had supplied prefabricated homes to the Caribbean in the wake of natural disasters. Guyana is blessed with an abundance of wood. Sawmilling was a booming enterprise. Constructing prefabricated homes could have been an industry in itself. The scope of employment would have been beyond imagination.
The government’s housing programme would have been far advanced. People would not have had to line up for house lots and then wonder about being able to construct a home. The Bulkan enterprise has gone to the wall. That was one of the fabricators. Another was Demerara Timbers Limited. That too has disappeared.
Guyana was involved in so many things that could have seen the country more advanced than it is. The country is now pursuing gas to energy. It had already tried to develop large scale hydroelectric projects. There was the first, targeting Marshall Falls, that Burnham started in 1973 using the earnings from rice and bauxite.
International pressure with Venezuela in the forefront saw the demise of that pursuit. The present government, in another incarnation, pursued the Amaila Falls hydroelectric project. After spending millions of dollars that project also failed. Recently, there was talk about resuscitating it.
Now the gas to energy project is floundering. The government says that it is nearing completion some three years beyond schedule. There were changes to the original plan—changes such as changing the site of the gas turbine. That not only added millions of dollars to the project cost but also exposed the absence of proper planning.
Looking back at the failed projects, one can only wonder what this country would have been if only.
