Coil : Hezekiah and the management of Guyana’s envelopes and other riches

by Vidyaratha Kissoon

“Dey should cut dey salary den” the elderly woman said . She knew about austerity, having reused, mended, repaired all her life. The woman washes plastic bags to reuse them .

She heard Vice President No Apologies Harmon talking about the need for ‘austerity’ and that one thing

An old man laughed and said ‘dis was like Burnham’ days. He used to work in a Ministry in those days and would have had to reuse envelopes and probably not use them. This thrift continued long after Burnham died.

In 1993 , the secretaries at GuySuco where I worked encouraged reuse of envelopes. I used to take in the old ones with some embarrassment and the secretary would say “oh yes, bring them in.” It seems that the austerity thing shifted to some idea of saving trees.

I still have a pile of old envelopes because I hardly use them and there is a dilemma now with 

discarding them. Some of them are 10 and 12 years old according to the post marks .

I wonder if we can pay our Taxes in envelopes for the Ministries to reuse?

The Minister talked about asking people to turn of A/C and to switch off lights. A lot of Government buildings had to be sealed up to have A/C, so lights have to be on all the time. The Green Government might want to consider design issues beyond painting buildings green to seriously cut down on some of the costs associated with energy consumption.

Some people I know would take light bulbs out of the sockets when they really wanted to save electricity. That way no mistakes could be made.

There was no mention of the fiscal measures like reusing envelopes in the Budget 2017 speech. Has something gone wrong with the Government’s budget projections for 2017?

The week that Mr Harmon talked about austerity, Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman talked about riches from oil and that Guyana will get 50% – “Guyana would become wealthy “

The Minister cautioned though, that Guyana should not be like Hezekiah – “there is no need for Government to broadcast its business to the entire world when the resource is not completely in hand.”

Those of us who have never heard of Hezekiah must wonder what on earth the Minister was talking about. Was Hezekiah some evil corrupt person who did dodgy deals or was he somebody who left his windows open trusting that bandits and thieves would not come in and steal from him?

Hezekiah though from all accounts was a good king who worshipped his God and received accolades and blessings. There is no dispute about this goodness and I read some articles encouraging people to be like Hezekiah.

However, there was an episode of an intervention by Babylon According to one sermon which warns about the followers of Jehovah liming with the likes of me ,the bountiful blessings got to Hezekiah’s head and he forgot the source of his success.

The Babylonians visited, he showed them his riches and the Babylonians subsequently stole them. The sin apparently was pride and God punished him and his people.

So Minister Trotman wants us to trust him to ensure that Bablyon does not tief our oil. The only boast about our riches is “Guyana will be wealthy”.

Cynics might ask if Babylon is not the former Climate change denier ExxonMobil who knows the details of what they will take over four presidential term limits and who knew years ago that Guyana’s coastland would be vulnerable to rising sea levels and who might also know the impact of fracking the sea bed.

It must be confusing though for Minister Trotman. The Americans are working with Guyana to be a part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative which would seem some kind of Hezekiah type disclosures to Babylon and other stakeholders. The man who is heading the State Assets Recovery Agency is suggesting that EITI might not be enough to ensure absence of corruption.

At the same time, the Americans also said the companies could keep more secrets .

So people are muttering about 2020 and what is going to happen. The stakes are higher now than the responsibility to recycle envelopes and turn off the lights.

The PPP is not bothered about releasing the details of the oil contract. They were the first people not to be like Hezekiah , not only about oil but about plenty things and there are secrets which the current Government not talking about like the Marriott deal and so.

There are mutterings about Constitution reform which might or might not improve governance depending on who is talking.

The Americans are also supporting the Constitutional Reform process., and given the recent experiences with Constitution in Guyana and the USA , who knows what the real outcome would be?

So what hope apart from the oil riches which we don’t really know about ?

In the news of the foreign currency problems (or lack of problems), it was interesting to see what was on sale for less than 1USD . One small pineapple for $200. 1lb of Cayan banana for $200. 5 mangoes, 5 or 6 star apples, 4 or 5 oranges , 1 pawpaw.

There is a reassurance in the bounty which comes from the land already , which is visible and which does not seem to leave much damage to the environment. Bounty which unfortunately does not ‘make Guyana wealthy’. There should be full support for any Government which wants to be lean and mean and which would not waste taxpayer’s money, in times of austerity or in times of plenty. Government could engage citizens to help reduce its costs of running the country. Many citizens know about budgeting and surviving in times of austerity.

The Government which wants to keep secrets is not going to benefit from the potential of the citizens to work on solutions.

A Government and Opposition which believe that the citizens are Babylon cannot benefit from the wealth and potential of citizens who would demand accountability and transparency in return for their efforts at making Guyana livable.