‘We don’t need more barrels, we need brains’ – Granger tells Guyanese in New York

President David Granger Friday evening implored Guyanese to contribute to the development of Guyana by investing in the country and in using their expertise and experience in various fields.

“We don’t need more barrels, we need brains,” he told a packed auditorium at the Princeton Club of New York.

He reminded Guyanese that Guyana has the resources and the doors are “open to business, to investment.”

“We don’t want to export raw lumber, we want to export the best furniture in South America; we don’t want to export raw gold, we don’t want people smuggling our gold, we want to export the finest jewellery, that can come out of the region,” he stated as he emphasised Guyana’s need for a manufacturing sector.

“We need your investment to help to develop these industries so that we could become an important manufacturing country and not simply an exporter of raw materials,” the President stated.

Further, the President stressed that expertise is needed to develop Guyana’s infrastructure, including building highways to allow access to the interior so the country can really serve as the gateway to South America for the Caribbean and vice versa, and the indigenous people can have easy access to markets. He bemoaned that fact that it is a journey of “great anguish and agony” to get to anywhere in Guyana beyond Linden.

Furthering his point, he noted that there is not a single bridge across the Essequibo River, something that “no one could be happy with.”

“We need engineers to develop our infrastructure, to bridge our rivers, to create highways,” he stated.

Regarding the energy sector, the President noted the potential for wind, solar and hydro power.

“You belong to a promised land,” the President declared, saying this could be achieved if the resources of Guyana and the experience and expertise of the diaspora are combined.