Five years after becoming a ‘petroleum’ state, expending the enormous sum of $329.9 billion of petroleum revenues and over fifty months after the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) entered office, Guyana still languishes as a country with a low ‘quality of life’. This country was ranked 95th behind other CARICOM states – Saint Kitts and Nevis, 51st; Antigua and Barbuda, 54th; The Bahamas 57th; Trinidad and Tobago, 60th; Barbados, 62nd; Grenada, 73rd and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 81st – in the UNDP Human Development Index.
Former President David Granger, speaking on the programme – The Public Interest – explained that, as a measure of citizens’ personal values and life experiences, ‘quality of life’ is taken to mean that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing a country’s development, not economic growth alone. Physical infrastructure does not necessarily equate to human development. Big budgets do not necessarily deliver human comfort and safety. Alienation, emigration and diminished participation in the political and social process are symptoms of a low ‘quality of life’.
Mr. Granger cited the evidence of the US Department of State’s Report on Human Rights which condemned the PPP/C administration’s record of human rights. Violations included credible reports of arbitrary or unlawful and extrajudicial killings; extensive gender-based violence, including domestic or intimate partner violence and sexual violence.
Further, the US Department of Labour, Child Labour and Forced Labour Report noted Guyana’s ‘minimal advancement’ in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour, including commercial sexual exploitation, sometimes as a result of human trafficking and dangerous tasks in mining. Guyana also scored only 40 points out of 100 on the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index reported by Transparency International. These reports paint a picture of the human condition that dims citizens’ high hopes for happiness and safeness.
The ‘quality of life’, admittedly, is largely a subjective measure of citizens’ satisfaction with their lives in a cultural, economic, social, and political environment. It is derived, also, from their high hopes for health, participation in community activities, personal development, relationships with other people, physical and material well-being, recreation and social support.
The former president emphasised, therefore, that citizens’ ‘quality of life’ is dependent on the delivery of public services which involve public trust and good governance. Citizens expect public servants to serve the public interest intelligently and with impartiality and integrity. Citizens hope to rely on public services to attain a high ‘quality of life’.
They hope to have access to education, steady employment, a safe environment, equality before the law, public healthcare especially protection from vector-borne diseases – dengue, filaria and malaria – and, above all, personal safety from violent crimes such as armed robbery, rape and murder. In this regard, shutting down the Bertram Collins College of the Public Service which started to train efficient public servants was an act of egregious stupidity.
Citizens’ feelings of safety and satisfaction are determined only partially by physical infrastructure. Bridges and buildings are necessary but not sufficient to guarantee citizens’ happiness amid fear of being robbed, being struck down on the roadways by drunken drivers, being discriminated against and being treated unequally in the courts or by agencies of the State.
Guyanese will find it difficult to attain a significantly higher ‘quality of life’ in the near future. The State and its public agencies need to do much more to enhance citizens’ ‘quality of life’. The State needs to foster cordial relations with civil society, the media and trade unions. Desisting from rancorous rants but insisting on good governance and social cohesion would contribute measurably to providing a high ‘quality of life’ for everyone.