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http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00099285/00059/5x

 

CARIBBEAN TODAY • FEBRUARY 2011

 

President Jagdeo leaving ‘tattered legacy’ in Guyana ~ U.S. think tank

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Aleading United States think tank believes Guyana’s

 

President Bharrat Jagdeo will leave a “tattered legacy” when he steps out of office later this year.“Stagnation, violence, cor-ruption, arch-sectarianism,and unfettered crime – this isthe heritage that President Bharrat Jagdeo will bequeath to his country”, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs(COHA) noted in a statement issued late last month.“Now that Jagdeo has announced that he will not seek a third term in the upcoming August election, he may well ask, as a New York mayor once did, ‘How did I do?’ The answer, in this instance, must be: ‘terribly’”,it added.Chosen by former President Janet Jagan to suc-ceed her in office, COHA said Jagdeo could only receive the lowest of marks from any independent evaluation.“Through his tolerance of crime, racism, and dismal social progress,President Jagdeo has turned in a fifth-rate performance as president of one of the poorest coun-tries in the hemisphere”, it stated.

As the Guyanese use every strategy,legal and ille-gal, to flee the dysfunctional country,Jagdeo will go Jagdeo down in histo-ry as a man who did almost nothing for his nation while in office”, it added.

 

CREDIT

 

But COHA noted that, to his credit, Jagdeo has led Guyana on a path of “consid-erable economic growth” inthe last 10 years, despite a devastating flood in 2005. It said the Guyanese economy,which is heavily dependent on the export of six main com-modities - rice, timber, gold,bauxite, shrimp and sugar -has expanded at an average rate of three percent over the past decade.“Sadly, however, despite this incremental improvement in the Guyanese economy,government officials have been either unwilling orunable to share this modest prosperity with average Guyanese citizens”, COHA noted.

 

Indicative of this trend is that the allocation for educa-tion as a percentage of gov-ernment spending is signifi-cantly lower than it was 10years ago, it stated. COHA also noted that public spend-ing one ducation dropped to 6.1 percent of total gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007, down from 8.5 percent in 2000.Because of this “lack of adequate spending on public education,” the think tank noted, the percentage of pri-mary school entrance-age chil-dren enrolled in such schools dropped from 91.8 percent to 62 percent.COHA warned that there could be “pernicious social consequences if education continues to take a back seat on the Guyanese agenda”.On healthcare, it noted there have been “some posi-tive results” including an increase in life expectancy and a notable decrease in infant mortality. But, it added,“many exigencies, however,remain unaffected”, stating,for example, that about a fifth of the Guyanese population still lacks access to clean sani-tation facilities.

 

The World Health Organization estimated that Guyana has one of the highest prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean.COHA said Jagdeo’s tenure will also be remem-bered for the “spike in violent crimes experienced through-out Guyana.“The violence in Guyana is all the bitterer for the ethnic undertones that color it.Guyana’s motto - ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny’ - only seems a cruel joke in the face of the stark division that has long seized the country - a division that Jagdeo has done almost noth-ing to address”, it added.

On balance, COHA noted that Jagdeo has “failed during his  presidency to advance the freedom and fairness of Guyanese public life, or the inequities of the Indo-Guyanese-dominated society”.

- CMC

 

 

Here is the tattered legacy.

Django
Last edited by Django
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