Spinning wheels…

…in the diaspora
A news item from Jamaica spoke of the disappointment of Jamaican officials in their efforts to get their diaspora involved in the development of their country. If we Guyanese think there’s a lot of us in “foreign”, we have nothing on Jamaicans. Wherever we might have gone, whatever we might have done out there – with the Jamaicans it’s “been there; done that”! There are huge Jamaican enclaves in New York (Brooklyn), London (Brixton) and Toronto.
For years, Jamaica has tried to mobilise them. One effort was the biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, of which the fifth one is underway. In the words of one of the organisers, however, they were all just excuses for overseas Jamaicans to return and have a party. This year, with the theme a bit more explicit: “A Nation on a Mission: Jamaica-Diaspora Partnership for Development”, they’re hoping for something different.
All of that reminds of the ambitious project that was rolled out last year to “map” our diaspora – with the same goal of identifying their skills and assets etc that might be tapped for our development. Funded by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), our Foreign Affairs Ministry was supposed to execute the project. But apart from a few high-profile “launches” in New York and Toronto and a website, we haven’t heard squat recently.
Now, this is much too much an important initiative for it to be killed on the vine through neglect by some bureaucrat or another. As has been pointed out so often, we’re starting from such a low base since 1992 that we can’t afford five per cent growth rates – while that’s nothing to sneeze at. For us to start catching up with our neighbours, we have to hit double-digit growth rates.
And this is where the diaspora comes in. They’ve already acquired skills that would take us years to develop in the normal course of things. Most importantly, they’ve become plugged in to the global supply chain that keeps the world spinning nowadays.
Studies have shown that even our present local firms would increase their sales exponentially if they can tap into these contacts.
We hope this lights a little fire under whoever’s in charge of the project. We just can’t wait for those folks in “foreign” to fill out the forms on your website. Let’s beat some bushes, ladies and gentlemen.
… in City Hall
We hadn’t seen so much action in City Hall since the riots that burnt down half of Water Street in the 1960s. The city councillors moved with so much alacrity that some of them must’ve pulled muscles in their shoulders and backs. And what was it that roused them – from both sides of the aisle – into action? The proposal by the acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba that they would only be paid for meetings they attended or work they actually did.
Man, you ought to see them thrusting their hands into the air to vote down the proposal!! We’d forgotten there was life in those hands – judging by the previous sloth in taking care of such pressing problems like garbage or their building crumbling over their heads and suchlike. The Mayor Hamilton Green, who through his inaction and inattention to his duties inspires them in their sloth, quickly rushed to their defence.
“What about those times they visit their “constituents” to fix local problems,” he asked. Well, if even one of them could produce a note from a single constituent whose problem they “fixed”, we’ll eat our words.
… on street lights
We all know that the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) is in dire straits. One of the reasons is that City Hall owes them Gy$ 1 billion. Threatened to have the lights at their offices cut off, the mayor proposed that street lights be cut first!! Sure… let rapes and crimes in the streets increase. But how can we have Green not seeing the numbers on his cheques?