As the Major Third World Powers of The African Union and India continue their collaboration on the International Scene it is disconcerting as an Indian Guyanese when we examine the African/Indian relationship in the past and present.

We look at places like Uganda, Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana and it seems that there is an African/Indian problem in these minor countries. Indeed, who can forget the song Caribbean Man that was supposed to be about all of us in CARICOM but was only attributed to African Caribbean people at the detriment of Indians that played a sustaining role in the whole of CARICOM.

While some would claim that it was for one reason or the other there is always the argument that the things that sustain these hypothesis (namely, slavery) happened over 200 years ago and was not an African/Indian conflict but a European-America/African conflict.

While I harbour my own suspicion as to the future of Guyana I do not let what I want cloud my judgement. And, as such I put Guyana first.

It is a fact that I have argued for the de-monopolising of the Radio Monopoly, the de-monopolising of Guyana Power and Light (GPL), I have highlighted that a Freedom of Information Bills needs to be tabled however before this Bill can be put into practice we would need enforcing Institutions (like the Police Force) to become fully Democratized and representative of the people as a Freedom of Information Bill would create a disjointed system when the enforcing officers support one political party.

And, I have also argued against Regional Government having revenue raising capabilities as this would create a segregated Guyanese society and lead to economic chaos as there would be a tendency for some RDC to overspend causing a devaluation of the Guyana dollar. So those that managed their finances well would end up paying the cost for those that are not prudent.

However, there can be better distribution of the Government Revenues. Before we can attempt this we would need to analyse data from the last 30 years and examine which towns and city are the main beneficiary per capita. It is no good comparing G$1M spent in Georgetown 30 years ago to G$1M spent in Parika today. What is needed is for the G$1M spent 30 years to be converted to US$ (as the international currency of choice is the US$) at the exchange rate at the time then reconverted to G$ at today’s exchange rate. In doing this we will take into account the devaluation that have taken place since 30 years ago to present day.
SEAN ADAMS/SEAN BRIGNANDAN