LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE!

Nov 09, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The President of Guyana must understand that however much he chooses to believe who like to tell him what he wants to hear, it is often better to find out the truth even if this comes from a source which is opposed to the government.
There are many persons who are today trying to tell the President of Guyana that things are not going right; that they have not been going right for a long time in Guyana. To tell the truth that things have been going wrong ever since he became President and therefore he has to look closely at his administration and try to find out where the mistakes are being made and make these right.
If the President does not act in doing this; if he does not come to the realization that he needs to do a complete somersault, then he will find that when he leaves office in two years time, he will have nothing but ill-will as his legacy because he failed to take condign action to right the many wrongs that have been taking place.
Is this how the President of Guyana wants to be remembered? Is this how he wishes to go down in history? Does he wish to be seen as an enigma; or as someone who promised much but delivered little?
If the President is serious about leaving a positive legacy, then he must make a three hundred and sixty degrees flip and begin anew. He can do so only if he begins to listen to what people have to say and not to treat every criticism, even from opposition figures, as simply being the work of persons who wish to bring his administration into disrepute.
When the leader of the Opposition became leader of the PNCR, he made a prophetic statement. He said that the opposition does not have to do anything. It simply has to leave the government and it will create its own problems. The opposition has for years now been leaving the government and the government has been drowning in problems of its own creation.
This newspaper “every single day” has been pointing out the problems of the administration. It has been pointing to the missteps that are being taken; it is exposing the rampant corruption that is pervading the system; it is revealing the hubris of our leaders, some of whom are more concerned about having their photographs in the newspaper than in trying to find meaningful solutions to the problems of the country. It has been reporting on a great many things which ought not to be happening and when it asks for a one-on-one interview with the Head of State to try to deal with some of these problems, it is told that this newspaper lies every single day.
Well if the President of Guyana believes that, then it will be very difficult for him to remove that which is preventing him from seeing the true picture of things because it is not just this newspaper which has been complaining. Right now civil society is taking a stand against the reports of police torture and once they have come out, it is not likely that they are going to go back to their original ways. We are witnessing the awakening of society in Guyana against the excesses of the State and it is time that the government of Guyana recognizes what is going wrong and take steps to reverse this situation.
The government needs to take a serious look at itself and ask whether it has delivered on the promise of 2006. When the present Cabinet was launched, one of the notable features was the number of persons with doctorates. One expected therefore that these learned persons would have provided visionary policies within their sectors because most of them are highly qualified.
Instead, the public has been greatly disappointed and the question that needs to be asked is why. Have the ministers been restrained in their performance? Is there a reason why we are not getting the best out of them? And is it because ministers are not being given sufficient free rein to do what they wish?
The President should ask himself these questions. He should ask himself whether he has allowed things to drift too far and whether it is not time for him to take urgent action to restore the credibility of his government.
He is bright man; he is someone who no longer has to worry about the party holding him back. He should take a good look at his government and act before things begin to deteriorate further.