Dem boys seh …De ants nest got dem quiet

Aug 04, 2010 Dem Boys Seh, News

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Is a lang time now that dem boys been asking nuff questions. Dem ask bout who gun pay fuh de stelling; dem ask who get a drawback fuh some of dem contract; and of course, dem always asking wha secret Fip got fuh some of dem big ones in de government.
Sometimes people does bluff, but most time dem in de government refusing to answer. Sometimes dem does get people who do de contract to sue just fuh stop all de question from coming.
Of course dem gat people who does cuss anybody who ask dem anything and dem man does cuss bad but only off de record.
Is only de other day dem boys understand why de government people don’t answer. Anybody who poke ants nest does get bite. But de government people standing pun de ants nest.
Of course dem have some standing near de ants nest and that is why dem does get vex because de questions dem boys asking is like poking ants nest. And by standing near de nest people gun get bite.
But is dem who deh pun de ants nest getting de worst—people like Brassy and Ashni and Bharrat and of course, Sam.
Dem boys seh that dem was surprise that Sam start fuh suffer from Alzheimer’s. He couldn’t remember signing a contract wid Fip.
Anyhow, dem wish dem boys would stop poking de ants nest because de more dem poke is de more dem have to scratch. And it look like dem boys till don’t want stop poking.
Talk half. Lef half.

PPP tampering with Guyana’s democracy through State media -AFC

The Alliance For Change in its latest ‘fact sheet’, says that the manner in which the ruling administration is using the State media is tampering with Guyana’s democracy whilst fomenting ethnic division. According to the party, the relationship between any two major ethnic groups sharing the same space is inherently fragile, and is particularly vulnerable to any effort aimed at increasing the levels of mistrust that will always exist within such an arrangement.
“We have noted the recent attempts by the State media to cause division within the AFC by suggesting the existence of two opposing factions within the party…The gist of the story is that these factions are lined up behind Raphael Trotman (Leader) and Khemraj Ramjattan (Chairman) respectively, and that they themselves are engaged in a leadership battle and are going around behind each others’ backs seeking alliances with the PNC and the PPP respectively.”
According to the party, the story is clearly consistent with the, ‘illogical political polarization of Afro and Indo Guyanese from which the PPP has benefited at previous elections.”
The AFC states that while not explicitly promoting division along ethnic lines, such action clearly plays on the element of mistrust.
“Given the realities which prevail here, any mistrust generated will ultimately manifest itself in ethnic terms…Any attempt by the State editors to feign a lack of awareness of the implications and effects of their reporting would be disingenuous.”
The party stated that one of the hallmarks of a modern and progressive society is the maintenance of strong and independent institutions.
“The blatant undermining of the independence of the State media is indicative of an approach to governance practiced by the current administration that is neither modern nor progressive.”
The party explained that the PPP “is using the National Communications Network’s strongest signal and the Guyana Chronicle’s heavily subsidized pages to spread information that is untrue and harmful to the AFC. The PPP government is tampering with Guyana’s democracy and fomenting ethnic mistrust.”
The party is of the opinion that the baseless reasoning that the state media is actually providing a balance to the bias of the private media is an insult to the intelligence of the populace.
“Those political flunkies who espouse this nonsense in defence of their actions ought to be ashamed.”
The party said that it is clear that the PPP does not wish to engage them at the next national election and is seeking to destroy it in advance.
“Without wishing to belittle anyone’s intelligence we wish to state that only a complete fool could look at Guyana after almost half a century of independence and conclude that the PPP and the PNC provided all the political variety that we could possibly require, and that another strong party is unhelpful and unnecessary to the national need.”

Efforts being made to improve efficiency despite limitations – Williams

It was just a mere three years ago that the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown had a workforce which surpassed 1,300, a total which has since been reduced to 900.
This significant shift in numbers was highlighted by Deputy Mayor and Chairman of the municipality’s Finance Committee, Robert Williams, even as he sought to give emphasise to the fact that the municipality has been trying with some success over the years to address its protracted financial problems.
“This reduction of staff means that council has either been consciously or unconsciously reducing its staff. Had we not reduced staff we would not have been able to pay salaries for the month of January much less to reach July.”
However, Williams noted that four years have already elapsed since the council had engaged efforts to restructure or reorganise, without much success. His remarks were forthcoming yesterday during a meeting held at the municipality intended to address the issue of overstaffing.
The meeting saw the attendance of officials from the Guyana Labour Union and was represented by municipal officers and councillors.
In expressing his convictions, Williams noted that the meeting should be held under the pitch of reorganising the municipality to meet the challenges and the core delivery of services rather than considering whether or not to send home staff.
“It has always been mouthed that we are overstaffed…but what has the staff been doing? That is what we need to see…The staff is doing a labour intensive set of organisational work; work that machines cannot do in the main and therefore you have to have staff. We have not been able to maintain the roads because we do not have the money and we do not have the staff…”
According to City Mayor Hamilton Green, a number of departments including the constabulary and the city engineer’s unit have all complained of being understaffed, hence emphasising the need for more staff and not a cut as is being touted by Central Government. Several technical workers have either retired or have since died leaving an immense void in the operational ability of the municipality, Williams noted.
“We have not been able to replace these workers so how can we retrench? We need the unions to speak out…”
Williams further pointed to the fact that there is no place in this world that persons are in receipt of the same salary today as was being earned in the year 1998. However this is indeed the case here in Guyana, the Deputy Mayor disclosed, as is evident in the collection of property tax.
“The same amount of money we collected from property owners in 1998 we are collecting in 2010. How is it that this money is going to be split? When the private sector was here a couple of days ago I gave them a document and I suspected that got them to be quiet…”
The Deputy Mayor revealed that the council in 1998 collected $759M in property taxes with an assessed value of 709M. In 2010, at the same assessed value, the council was able to collect a whopping $1.3B in taxes.
“Property taxes haven’t increased…It was the efforts of this same council that people say that they don’t know what it is doing that brought in the taxes, but we are not hearing any noise about it.”
According to Williams, there is a need for the message to be gotten across that the municipality has improved in its tax collection despite being owed.

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