uyana’s roads are not adequate to
bear the traffic of a modern nation-state. Of its
7,970 kilometres of highway, 7,380—a full 93%—are
unpaved. With but one important exception—the
highway that runs from Soesdyke to the bauxite
mining town of Linden—this system of roads is
limited to the narrow band of towns and villages
that run along the coast. New improvements in key
roads such as the East Bank Road and East Coast Road
is underway.
A highway linking Guyana to Brazil is
in the process of being built. This is an important
step forward, for it will allow Guyana access to the
road networks of all South America—an excellent
channel for commerce. But in itself that is barely
sufficient. Many more roads, bridges and water
facilities must be built to make Guyana a vibrant
hub of economic traffic.
Trains
Guyana has one rail transport system,
running for a total of 187 kilometres, whose sole
task is to transport ore from the interior for
export. It is not clear whether there will be any
need for the further development and expansion of
rail traffic and the establishment of a light rail
system between major cities.
Air Transport
Guyana possesses one international
airport, located in Timehri and serviced by a number
of major airlines, which connect Guyana with cities
in North America, Brazil and the Caribbean.
Although at present Guyana does not have its own
national airline, one that myself and others are
launching in 2005, known as CariAir
Incorporated—with the goal of performing regional
passenger and cargo service and linking to the
Americas.
In addition, Guyana has about 90
other airstrips, most of them in the interior and
sufficient for light aircraft. However, they are
primitive facilities, many of them lacking basic
equipment such as landing lights and navigation
equipment.
At present, Guyana’s air service is
limited in coverage and capacity, as well as being
very expensive. Thus much work remains to be done.
The airstrip at Ogle must be
developed more rapidly. The hope was to have at
least a 5,000-foot runway. This has been delayed
with only about 2,500 feet slated for 2005. The
need to aggressively attract new entrants to make
the 5,000 feet a reality is necessary.
Waterways
Guyana possesses a number of ports on
the Atlantic Ocean—the most important being the Port
of Georgetown. These ports, located at the mouths of
rivers, allow ships to travel into the interior to a
depth of approximately 100 kilometres. This
transportation is used heavily in shipping, and is
of prime importance.
Unfortunately, Guyana’s shipping
capabilities are severely hampered by the fact that
all of its ports are shallow. For instance, the Port
of Georgetown has a depth of no more than 30 feet
and is a mere 220 feet wide. As a result, only
shallow-draft vessels are able to navigate the
coastline and rivers. This limitation chokes export
industries and raises manufacturing and construction
costs. Creating a deep-water port is a long-time
dream whose time has come.
In addition to that, all the ports
require major improvement. For instance, equipment
is needed to remove wrecks, dredge, load, make
pallets and fight fires.
And besides this, port facilities are
inefficient and handling charges frequently
exorbitant (although recent competition has lowered
such charges considerably—a dramatic illustration of
the power of free enterprise).
Electricity
Guyana’s electrical system is
inadequate even for present needs. It is capable of
providing services to no more than 60% of its
population, mostly along the coast. (This
constitutes an ex post facto discrimination against
Amerindians, who live in the interior, presenting
yet another barrier to their betterment.) The
service that is provided is generally poor, marked
by outages and voltage variation. And to boot, the
cost of this inadequate service is high–the second
highest in the Caribbean.
Guyana Power and Light (GPL) faces a
number of difficult challenges. Its expenses are
high—oil prices are rising, and it must deal with a
heavy fine imposed by the Public Utilities
Commission on allied AC Power. Yet at the same time
incoming revenues are encumbered by the fact that
(as GPL officials claim) consumers bribe GPL staff
to allow them to make only partial payment.
Guyana’s electrical system requires
major renovation and expansion, and that needs to
happen quickly for growth and economic opportunity
to expand. Imagine, if you will, a Guyana with
adequate, consistent and inexpensive electricity for
every home and every business. This vision must
keep us focussed and hopeful through the difficult
process of improvement in the years to come.
Telecommunications
Guyana’s telephone lines service
about 70,000 customers (as of 2000). Many Guyanese
homes lack telephone service. If Guyana is to join
the world’s modern nations, it must provide
telephone service to every Guyanese family.
In addition, an increasing number
over 6,000 customers use cell phones. And about
three Internet Service Providers (ISPs) service
approximately 95,000 users or more.
As for mass communication, six radio
stations (three AM and three FM stations) broadcast
in Guyana, in addition to a shortwave station, to
420,000 radios. There are many new television
broadcast stations, and they service about 46,000
television sets and growing.
In Sum
Clearly, many aspects of Guyana’s
infrastructure are barely adequate to meet the needs
of the nation at present and incapable of meeting
Guyana’s expected growth and technological
development. Lacking adequate infrastructure,
Guyana will be constricted and unable to make use of
any growth opportunities.
This situation cannot be allowed to
endure. Utilizing creativity and vision, we must
invent or rediscover ways of enhancing Guyana’s
highways and airways, shipping lanes and
communication channels to meet the needs of an
emerging modern state.
acking an adequate and efficient
infrastructure, Guyana will not be able to improve
trade, develop its economy and raise the quality of
life. Only by enhancing its inferior infrastructure
can Guyana assist the private sector to revitalize
the country. The best plan to do so is the
integrated program known as “Guyana 21.
Guyana 2
In its position paper, Committed
to Putting Guyana First, REFORM sets forth an
ambitious program for infrastructure expansion that
it calls Guyana 21. As a member of the
REFORM, I stand behind the proposals of this daring
scheme architected by Stanley Ming and Eric
Phillips.
REFORM makes the remarkable claim
that by implementing Guyana 21, Guyana will be able
to transform itself into another Hong Kong within
the next five years. In light of present-day
conditions, this claim seems wildly optimistic. Yet
before dismissing it out of hand, please peruse its
details with an open mind. I hope that when you do,
your enthusiasm will be set aflame and you will come
to share this vision.
Guyana 21 is a program that will
result in the building of four bridges and
causeways, ten highways (among them two highways
linking Guyana to Brazil and Venezuela), a
deep-water harbour, a new and modern international
airport, and an export processing zone in the
Essequibo delta. This will be linked to the
implementation of new macro-economic policies,
legislation and nation-building policies.
As this aggregate of initiatives
coalesces, Guyana 21 will turn Guyana into a major
transhipment hub attracting foreign investment,
technology and human resource capital.
The following information is
adopted
from REFORM’s position paper.
The Projects
Guyana 21's planned projects are as
follows:
!
Air transport
"
A new international airport, capable of handling
aircraft of all sizes.
!
Bridges
"
A high-span bridge over the Berbice River, with the
concomitant development of a new commercial area.
"
A high-span bridge over the Demerara River.
"
A series of bridges and causeways linking the
islands in the Essequibo delta to Morasi and
Supenaam.
"
A high-span bridge over the Essequibo River at
Monkey-Jump.
!
Highways
"
A four-lane highway connecting Georgetown to
Soesdyke-Linden Highway.
"
A highway from Soesdyke to Wales on Demerara’s west
bank.
"
A highway from Parika to Monkey-Jump on Essequibo’s
east bank.
"
A highway from the new international airport to
Makouria on Essequibo’s east bank.
"
A highway from the new international airport to
Morasi on the Essequibo River’s east bank.
"
A highway from Timehri via St. Cuthbert’s, Mahaica
to Berbice.
"
A high-speed highway from Monkey-Jump via Linden to
Lethem.
"
A highway from Monkey-Jump to Bartica.
"
A highway from Supenaam to Kamaria on the Cuyuni
River.
"
A highway from Charity, Pomeroon, to the Venezuela
border.
!
Waterways
"
A deep-water harbour at the mouth of the Essequibo
River (Hogg Island).
!
Export Processing Zone
"
The Hogg Island Deep Water Harbour will function as
an Export Processing Zone where domestic taxes and
other obligations are minimized, thus encouraging
private investment in small, medium and large
enterprises.
A Vision of What Guyana Can Be
Please take a few moments to envision
a Guyana with these facilities.
Imagine a modern nation with broad,
smooth highways on which tractor-trailer convoys
speed along, carrying goods to and from Brazil,
Suriname and Venezuela. The port is vibrant and
bustling with activity, as cargo from Brazil and
Venezuela is swung onto huge ships.
The amount of labour necessary to
build these roads, bridges and so forth has given
extended employment with decent wages to thousands
of Guyanese. And as the economy is revitalized, more
jobs continue to be created. Towns have appeared
alongside these projects. Facing the paved,
tree-lined streets, new houses stand, with adequate
plumbing and clean water, telephone service and
dependable electricity.
Glistening office buildings are going
up, and in air-conditioned offices, corporate
executives plan the building of their facilities in
Guyana. A strict code of environmental law protects
the rain forest from depredation, even as controlled
exploitation of its wealth brings abundance and a
new life to the Amerindians. Eco-tourists pour into
Guyana, and prosperous hamlets appear in the
interior, servicing the needs of these intrepid
travellers. Along the coast, once-sleepy towns are
alive with traffic and commerce. Businesses
everywhere flourish: hotels, stores providing cell
phones, Internet cafes. Streets are clean, and the
restaurants are bustling with patrons.
Meanwhile, children who formerly had
to work to help support their families pass by on
the street noisily, their schoolbook bags slung
across their shoulders.
All of this can be expected as a
result of the implementation of Guyana 21, as
thousands of jobs are created and every sector
experiences phenomenal spin-off growth.
Financing Guyana 21
This is a wonderful vision. But how
will such a major, nation-transforming initiative be
financed?
Guyana 21 can be financed via the
utilization of strategies known as
Build-Operate-Transfer (BOPT),
Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) and
Build-Own-Operate (BOO). These mechanisms have been
used with great success in Asia (especially in the
“Asian Tigers”: Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and
Indonesia) and more recently in Latin America, the
Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.
The great advantage of these funding
mechanisms is that they incur
little or no cost to taxpayers and no
increase in foreign debt.
That is because they are based on
direct foreign private investment.
How Do BOPT, BOOT and BOO Strategies
Work?
There are three basic aspects to the
BOPT, BOOT and BOO strategies.
The first is that private sector
investors provide equity financing in the amount of
10% to 30% of a project’s costs, and seek debt
financing for the balance of the investment.
Secondly, Guyana furnishes a portion
of or all of the land that may be required for the
project. Alternatively, it grants partial tax relief
in some form or another.
Thirdly, Guyana may offer other
concessions as well, such as toll rights on roads
and divestment of land or resources that lie on
either side of the road being built.
The advantages of BOPT, BOOT and BOO
arrangements are many and significant. For
instance,
!
Guyana will engage in the much-needed improvement of
its infrastructure without burdening the local
economy.
!
Guyana will incur no risk, because there are
generally so many bonds and letters-of-credit that
even if the project’s private-sector sponsors
default, the projects will be completed.
!
The projects can progress relatively rapidly, since
they are under private sector management rather than
under government control.
!
Initial execution quality is usually first-rate,
because the sponsors are contractually bound to
maintain the projects for periods longer than 20
years.
An Example of a BOPT Project
Consider a high-speed highway from
Brazil to Guyana’s deep-water harbour (two GUYANA 21
projects). This 300-mile road will allow Brazilian
industries, primarily in the state of Roraima, to
send their products to the harbour in Guyana (via
truck-trailer convoys) more cheaply than to a
Brazilian port.
The road will be Built
by a private corporation. Tolls will be established.
(Local drivers will continue utilizing regular
roads, thus circumventing the toll fees.)
Projected cross-border traffic will
be so high that the highway is likely to pay for
itself within the first seven to ten years of
operation. Following that period of OPeration,
ownership of the road will be Transferred
to the Government of Guyana, although it will
continue to be maintained by the commercial firm for
at least another ten years.
Some Other Aspects of Guyana 21
Guyana 21 will be a useful lever for
making use of expatriates’ resources. When seeking
investment, emphasis will be placed on soliciting
the interest of Guyanese expatriates.
Also, Guyana 21 will seek a direct
benefit for individual Guyanese—local or
expatriate. Each non-Guyanese investor will be
asked to fund a local or expatriate Guyanese
strategic partner and to contribute to nation
building—for instance, in the fields of skills
transfer, health, housing, etc.
To further encourage the
strengthening of the economy, Guyana 21 will utilize
public-private partnerships. A Guyana
Infrastructure Fund, a private equity fund, will be
established, whose principal objective will be to
achieve long-term capital appreciation through
private sector investment within Guyana. Guyanese
private citizens will be encouraged to participate
in this fund.
Regional Benefits
By building highways that connect
Guyana to its neighbours and by providing a central
deep water port, Guyana 21 will benefit the
northeast region of the South American continent,
resulting in a synergistic and self-enhancing effect
that will explosively transform the entire region’s
economies.
Benefits to Brazil
The highway to Brazil, the deep-water
harbour and the export-processing zone will attract
Brazil’s business on a major scale, and this alone
will dramatically transform Guyana’s economy.
Brazil is a major economic force. It
is the number one global exporter of five key
products, including coffee and orange juice, and the
number two global exporter of three other products.
Its use of Guyana’s deep-water harbour and export
processing zone will be mutually beneficial to both
nations.
Benefits to Venezuela
Within the next ten years, US$50
billion will be pumped into eastern Venezuela for
the development of the La Horqueta region. La
Horqueta is practically surrounded by mountain
ranges, and so creating a passageway to the Atlantic
Ocean through Venezuela would be enormously
expensive. A new Guyana-Venezuela highway would
provide access to Guyana’s deep-water port at half
the cost.
With improved Venezuelan access to
Guyanese and other Caribbean markets, cross-border
trade will be greatly stimulated.
Benefits to Suriname
Like present-day Guyana, Suriname
suffers from high shipping costs due to the absence
of a deep-water harbour.
Guyana’s deep-water harbour would
bring about a substantial lowering of costs and
could stimulate greater export activity through the
availability of roll-on/roll-off facilities and
high-speed goods transfer systems.
Realistic “Dreamers”
In the ever-present debate between
“realists” and “dreamers,” we often find that the
“dreamers” are actually the more realistic of the
two. That is because “realism” is often pessimism
disguised, and pessimism validates its own dark
predictions by keeping us from striving forward.
“Dreamers,” on the other hand, create their dream by
striving for it even when circumstances seem bleak.
Therefore, believe that the “dreams”
described in this chapter are truly realistic
goals—when we dare to envision them and
actualize them.
