Development Policy In Guyana

Planning, Finance, And Administration

Kempe R. Hope

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429727856
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Finance
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This study of Guyana's economy, both analytical and empirical, examines the literature on development policy and applies various theoretical frameworks to data acquired in Guyana since 1945, Dr. Hope considers planning, finance, and administration, seeking to determine whether the Guyana government's development policy has been an instrument of eco

1. Introduction

This study is restricted to the postwar period. It does draw from some of my previously published work on the Guyana economy, but, nonetheless, it is an original piece of research on a topic of major significance not only to Guyana, but to the majority of the developing nations. Hence, the conclusions derived should be of relevance to most developing countries.

Purpose and Nature of the Study

This study is an analysis of Guyana's experience with planning, financing and administering development. It is both analytical and empirical, and significant emphasis is placed on a cohesive application of relevant and modern day thoughts, as portrayed in the literature, to the research topic.

Essentially, this study attempts to determine whether the Guyana Government's development policy-manifested in overall national planning, finance and administrative organisation and procedures-has been utilised as an instrument of economic growth in Guyana during the postwar period in (1) directing development planning in a manner conducive to increase the level of productive investment; (2) bringing about an allocation of resources which has the greatest potentiality for growth; (3) utilising various planning tools to raise resources for financing the growing development expenditures; and (4) providing the necessary inputs required by the administrative machinery to successfully implement policy goals.

Guyana falls into that category of developing countries where governments play a key role in national development. The public sector, in these countries, has generally occupied a much more important economic position than in the developed Western countries. In Guyana, the share of the public sector in national economic activities is more than 80 percent.¹ In all such countries, therefore, even on a priori reasoning, there is a significant relationship between successful public sector planning and the level of growth attained.

Economic planning or central guidance of the economy, therefore, become the responsibility of the government. In order to accelerate development and to apply modern technology to production, governmental planning and control is necessary. Only the government is in a position to assemble the necessary data for an overall view of the economic and social situation. Only the government possesses the power to allocate the scarce resources for accelerating development of the financial, administrative and other means to influence economic trends and social welfare.

Capital necessary for economic development and funds for social development increasingly depend on the government, which either provides the financial resources directly or encourages the flow of funds from internal or external sources through various compulsory or facilitative measures, including laws and regulations, guarantees and other means.

During this process, the functions of government grow further not only in size, magnitude and importance but also in complexity. Complexity is used here to denote both a high degree of knowledge required to produce the output of a system and a high degree of division of labour. Government activities become much more specialised, requiring highly technical personnel to handle them. They often involve more than one discipline and cut across traditional functions, requiring interdisciplinary and multifunctional approaches. They are also multidimensional in nature. They are influenced by a high degree of interdependence among individuals and groups. They also involve different levels of government, including central, regional and local administration, and often cut across traditional geographical or political boundaries.

One aspect of the differentiation of functions has been the rise of the bureaucracy as a distinct arm of government. It is true that the arts of government and administration have been essential features of human society ever since man emerged from the most primitive form of association. But modern public administration has a history of only two or three hundred years.² A country can be said to have established a modern system of public administration only when it has a Civil Service to serve the country, the nation, the State or Head of the State in his or her capacity as a symbol of the country. In other words, modern public administration is one in which the administrators are not servants of the person who is the Head of the State or servants of any other person or group of persons, but servants of the public or the people. Once his or her position as a public servant is established a public administrator assumes a role distinct from that of a politician.

Public administration is a means to an end, in so far as the means can be separated from the end. It is an instrument to implement public policy. It is a detailed and systematic execution of public law. Its operations are goal oriented and are for the purpose of fulfilling government policies. Administrative management in the public sector is a process of organising the collective efforts to achieve particular objectives as determined by the economic and political system or, more simply, to get things done through public organisations.

In any Less Developed Country (LDC) where there is significant government intervention in the economy or national planning for development, the role of financial resources and the administrative arm of government increase in importance. Moreover, for development planning to be successful, plan financing and administration must also be successful. It is for this reason that this study, in examining development policy in Guyana, restricts itself to the topics of development planning, development finance, and development administration.

A number of studies have been done on the impact of development policy planning, finance, and administration-on the economic growth of the Asian and Latin American countries. Very few similar studies have been done on the Caribbean countries, and those studies are now obsolete. This study should therefore make a meaningful contribution in eliminating the paucity of such literature.

Plan of the Study

This study is divided into seven chapters. Chapter two discusses, appraises, and evaluates the theoretical literature pertaining to development policy as it evolved over the years.

Chapter three gives a summary of the structure and performance of the Guyana economy during the postwar period. Against that background information, the rest of the study proceeds.

Chapter four analyses, assesses, and compares the development planning effort in Guyana as it occurred, during the postwar era, within the framework of the study objectives.

Chapter five is concerned with the financing aspects of development. It explores the economic impact of the internal sources of finance, the external sources, and the growth of the public debt.

Chapter six aims at explaining how development policy has been administered in Guyana. Here, an examination is made of the structure of development administration, factors affecting development administration, and measures for improving Guyana's development administration.

Chapter seven will summarize the findings and offer conclusions concerning the relationships among planning, administration and financing of development with respect to economic growth and development policy in Guyana.

Notes

1. See Kempe R. Hope, "The Role of Government Expenditure in the Economic Development in Guyana, 1960-70", The American Economist 16 (Fall 1972), p. 168.

2. United Nations, Development Administration: Current Approaches and Trends in Public Administration for National Development (New York: United Nations, 1975), pp. 11-12.

2. Development Policy in Perspective: A Theoretical Appraisal

For more than a decade now, growing worldwide attention has been focused on the development of poor nations. The United Nations has sponsored Development Decades; rich countries pay lip service to development, if not much largesse; and millions of poor people in several countries have set development as their most sought-after goal.¹ Indeed, this is the first time in history that it has been possible to conceive of development for virtually every country in the world economy.²

But what is development? And how do we recognise it when it occurs? These questions do not have easy answers. The simple fact is that there is much disagreement over what development is all about and how it should be measured. In the section following, an attempt is made to provide some of the answers before actually examining in theoretical perspective, specific aspects of development policy that apply to this study.

What is Development

For many years, almost everyone looked at the development of poor countries solely in terms of economic goals. Development meant a rising gross national product, an increase in investment and consumption (the twin pillars of traditional economics), and a rising standard of living. A theory was elaborated on the basis of Western experience during the nineteenth century. According to that theory, at some point a developing economy would become strong enough, and complex enough, to take off towards the industrial heights scaled by so many countries in the Northern Hemisphere.³

The tools of this type of development, also, were quite clearly, anything that could help get the engines of investment, production, and consumption moving in the individual poor country. This meant an inflow of capital goods from rich countries. It also meant technical advice, borne either by experts from abroad, or by students, returning home with degrees in economics from North American and European Universities, and the creation of economic institutions that would provide people in the less developed countries with the ability to read and write and then produce more economic and technical knowledge.

Round and round the system would go, getting steadily richer, until the poor country could truly be said to be developing. This theory of economic development worked remarkably well in some countries. In South Korea and Taiwan, for example, production of goods and services leaped upwards helped, of course, by U.S. aid and defense outlays until these countries began to leave poverty behind.⁴

However, elsewhere, some flaws appeared in the theory. For one thing, the poor countries challenged the notion that development could be measured purely in terms of growth in GNP. In country after country, it became obvious that there were serious questions to be asked about economic justice, social equality and political development, the nature and rate of change, the internal consistency of the development process, and income distribution.⁵

Hence, the challenge resulted in a search for a new meaning and approach, to development-a relative meaning and approach, to development. "The task was therefore one of finding a new measure of development to replace the growth or national income measure, or, more precisely, to enable the national income to be given its true, somewhat limited, significance as a measure of development potential".⁶

Many theorists and the leaders of the developing Third World countries, therefore, agreed on the principle that underdevelopment is not just the lack of development. They argued, instead, that before there was development there was no underdevelopment and that the relation between development and underdevelopment is not just a comparative one, in the sense that some places are more developed or underdeveloped than others but, rather, that development and underdevelopment are also related both through the common historical process that they have shared during the past several centuries and through the mutual, that is, reciprocal, influence that they have had, still have, and will continue to have, on each other throughout history.⁷

The emphasis therefore shifted and development began to be regarded as a total process involving economic, social, political, and cultural elements. Its principal aim being, to improve not only the economic, but the social, cultural, and environmental welfare of a nation. This was to be brought about not through reliance on external assistance, but through national effort embodied in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Currency Conversion Ratios
• PREFACE
• 1 INTRODUCTION
• 2 DEVELOPMENT POLICY IN PERSPECTIVE: A THEORETICAL APPRAISAL
• 3 STRUCTURE OF THE GUYANA ECONOMY
• 4 PLANNING FOR DEVELOPMENT IN GUYANA
• 5 THE FINANCING OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN GUYANA
• 6 DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION IN GUYANA
• 7 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS