Editorial
The news that a Brazilian firm will begin this week the construction of a bridge across the Takutu river has set one thinking about the consequences which follow the building of such international bridges. The Takutu is the boundary river between Guyana and Brazil. It is shallow and there is already daily two-way traffic between Lethem across the river to Bonfim on the other side, thence to Boa Vista and sometimes onwards to Manaus.
Stabroek News
August 15, 2001
Not only people and goods move across bridges. Bridges even between major regions of the same country promote the movement and exchange of ideas and ways of living. Consider the effect of the Demerara bridge on the business development across the river as far as Parika and how the road to Linden made that township into a major focal point of politics.
The bridge is being built in keeping with an agreement signed between the Government of Guyana and the Federal State of Roraima. It marks the first step in Brazil's endeavour to co-operate with Guyana on building the long dreamt of hinterland road through to Georgetown.
A hinterland road has always been central to the dream of a continental destiny for Guyana's development which inspired a past generation of political leaders including such personalities as Raatgaver, Evan Wong and S.N. Collins. At one time it was reported that no less a person than Henry Ford (of Ford Motor Company) was ready to help "Bust BG Wide Open". But at a later time the dream succumbed to aspirations which looked north and promised independence within the West Indian grouping or separately. And there were those who argued that the Caricom Common Market could provide the stimulus for rapid industrialisation through import substitution strategy. That strategy largely failed as was perhaps inevitable in what amounted to the pooling of very tiny markets. Caricom states are now committed to the wider strategy of export led growth and the search for new overseas markets. It is in this context that the vision of a continental destiny is being revived in keeping with the potential for industrial development aimed at new markets in South America.
However, to understand the significance of the bridge one must also consider the thousands of miles of road systems being pushed through Brazil's Amazon jungle. In keeping with the Avanca Brazil programme there are, among others, two relevant projected road systems. One system will run from Cuiaba in the deep Southwest of Brazil northward to Santarem, a port city on the Amazon, with the region's rapidly expanding exports being shipped through the Amazon Delta to the Atlantic Ocean. The other road system will start in the Southwest from Humaita and will be pushed northwards to Manaus (already Brazil's sixth largest city) thence to Boa Vista.
The most expeditious route for the shipment of the exports of the equally vast southwest region of Brazil will almost certainly be across the Takutu and on to Port Georgetown on the Atlantic.
Already there is major controversy in Brazil about the threat to the Amazon Rain Forest (which is two-fifths of the world's remaining rain forest), the disruption of Amerindian communities and the wider sociological consequences which follow the building of roads. Such concerns including the penetration of gold miners (the Garimpeiros) have already been raised here again last week.
However it is also strongly asserted that the Guyana road (as with those in Brazil) will stimulate rapid economic development. And the goods should not move one way. Guyana must begin the urgent search for new markets as the preferential markets in Europe for our traditional export commodities begin to diminish and disappear. Entrepreneurs must look increasingly southwards for markets for new products which may come on stream.
This is not just speculation. Already Guyana has a Memorandum of Understanding with Mercosul (Mercosur in Spanish), the enormous Southern market, which brings together the markets of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay and Paraguay. Argentina is now in the throes of recession which may spread. But Mercosul will persist and survive and will surely become viable again.
More to the immediate point. Guyana has just concluded a two year Partial Scope Trade Agreement with Brazil which will provide tariff preferences on a specified list of products from the two countries. The list includes among others such export products of special interest to Guyana as fruits and vegetables, bottled rum, furniture, lumber and PVC pipes. Guyana will be able to import duty free from Brazil pharmaceuticals, machinery, construction steel, industrial equipment and other products pivotal to development.
Moreover it is likely that Caricom states will soon see Georgetown as the point of entry for exports into the markets of the south.
The consequences for Guyana will be far reaching. Vast new areas of the interior not now easily accessible will be opened up for exploration and mining and agricultural development. Remember an overseas based Guyanese expert demonstrated in the seventies that potatoes can be grown in the hinterland - in regions where Raleigh might have discovered the plant.
Trade and culture have always been interlinked. With geographical proximity made real, football might become as much part of the Guyana psyche as cricket now is. And the mixture of calypso and Brazilian rhythms should produce a new musical richness such as has come out of the blending of calypso and Indian music in Chutney which it is reported is now popular in Bombay discos.
One cannot turn away, despite the real risks, from the road. But it is essential (and we have so far heard no evidence of this) that comprehensive studies and planning should begin at once so as to maximise benefits and as far as possible minimise and provide safeguards against unacceptable risks and changes in our ways of living.
Such planning and institutional and administrative development mist be given urgent attention. Already in the report in Stabroek News on the beginning of the construction of the Takutu bridge problems were identified as for example, the need for Guyanese workers to be employed in the bridge construction despite differences in labour laws. It is also imperative to have consular and immigration and customs presences. In the longer view there will be the problems of joint control and administration as between two sovereign states.
It is this aspect of planning of a strategic focus which is so lacking in current perspectives. In this connection whatever, one may ask, has happened to the proposed Ministry for Planning and Economic Development?