It is obvious that the Government felt that the opportunities presented by the ethnic axis of Suriname, Guyana and Trinidad were so promising that they warranted sacrifice of the resolution of the border issues. An intelligent observation of the Surinamese social situation would have indicated that Surinamese ethnic groups are Surinamese first and ethnic second. Our ethnic leaders are ethnic first and Guyanese second. It is likely that a nasty international situation will result from the unresolved confrontation with Suriname. As the examples and the argument in this newsletter demonstrate, debilitating weaknesses in governance in Guyana are crippling the country.
Corruption is both personal and systemic.
Questionable financial arrangements, and racial biases in employment, in the appointments to statutory boards, in remuneration, in promotion, in the distribution of land and in the mechanisms for awarding contracts are not reformed despite promises to do so. Instead of aiding reform, the international community provides unwitting support to these very arrangements that the members claim they wish to bring to an end. For example, the World Bank's highly touted anti-corruption measures focused so narrowly on a single project that the opportunity to give systemic support to a courageous Auditor General was missed. The foreign community seems eager to supply interns for functions that Guyanese can perform, thereby strengthening those attitudes that are reluctant to build trust in Guyanese of all races in senior posts. There is not sufficient recognition of the fact that these difficulties derive, in large measure, from Westminster majority rule governments operating in an environment of racial tribalism for the past 43 years.