Dear Editor,
“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” These are the words of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America who has had to struggle with many failures in life inclusive of family, politics and education. Having been raised in the woods of Kentucky in poverty, experiencing sickness & death of his parents & children and lost political races, he did not let these unfortunate events define him. The people of Guyana, similarly, have had to contend with many struggles in the pre- and post-independence era but with resiliency and determination we have persevered and overcome them to be among the finest examples of modern society in areas of artistry, politics and academia. What has become disheartening is the level of failures the citizenry has had to put up with by successive governments with no clear vision for recourse on how to solve complex issues ranging from creating viable economic opportunities for all to harmonizing social entitlements (healthcare, social security and education) and revising the political culture to foster inclusivity by way of constitutional amendments. The overarching themes of social, economic and political modernization has never been articulated and implemented, but instead each government have resorted to piecemeal development plans that have been shredded in massive corruption, limited reach of the citizens and in many cases a total failure altogether as seen by the many projects that the current administration have undertaken in the last 23 years. Here is a list of failed projects under successive PPP Administrations:
The fiber Optic Cable project agreement signed in 2010 but initial works began in 2011 was intended to bring E-Government connectivity between Brazil and Guyana by way of the Linden-Lethem trail. The US32M (GUY6.4$billion) dollar price tag was a botched attempt due to cables buried being destroyed. Guyanese taxpayers spent over US$5M (GUY 1 billion) dollars without completion and was eventually discarded by the coalition government in 2016 after feasibility was conducted in partnership with the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph company.
Next on the list was Skeldon Sugar Factory commissioned in 2010, was a mega project which was supposed to be the panacea for the sugar industry. The US$200M factory at the time larger than the budget of the country was built with the capacity to crush 1.5 million tonnes of sugar and produce 150,000 tonnes of very high polarization (VHP) sugar along with a 10-megawatt (MW) energy cogeneration plant to supply the national grid. Neither of the two project components became reality as the government had to spend additional millions to repair defects and the citizens of our country are still fetching that exorbitant cost. While the One Laptop per family initiative would have been the most significant project in Guyana’s history of delivering laptops to family, students and educators bringing information technology at the fingertips of each Guyanese, has resulted in an abysmal failure. The project began without oversight of internal controls such as a board of directors and a budget that was inflated with excessive personnel. Alongside with poor accountability and transparency, the project initial goal to deliver 90,000 computers only 31,697 was delivered (35%), 1,875 was unaccounted without a formal investigation and the 3,158 in stock that was defective totaled to 5,136 were either stolen or are defective at an actual loss of GUY$306,160,171.
With the healthcare sector lacking training and delivery of specialized care, the PPP government initiated the idea of a specialty hospital to alleviate the population of expensive specialized care. The project, initially pegged at a US12M cost, was mired with controversy from the onset with Surendra, an Indian contractor being preferred over other capable bidders. The government tried to salvage the fiasco unsuccessfully by taking legal action to recover US$4.2 million. However, the coalition government repeated the same approach in 2016 failing again with a different contractor named Fedders Lloyd who is barred from operating in Guyana until 2020.
In our modern political culture, it is accepted that failures occur for many reasons beyond one person or a government’s reach. The government should not continue to deceive the people into its unrealistic timelines but should level with them truthfully about the benefits, challenges and revised timelines to build trust among the populace. Honesty and institutionalization is a challenge of each successive government. It becomes a burden when projects aren’t staffed with the required expertise and experience but rather are laden with government friends and family members. Additionally clearer requirements for bidding, qualification and selection of contracts are deficient. Parliament would do well to make changes to the procurement Act to close loose gaps that have led to public malfeasance of historic proportions.
Thank You,
Collin Haynes MPH MBA
