BUXTON: ONLY ONE EXAMPLE OF THE PPP’S MISGUIDED POLICIES AND CRIMINALISATION (Part 2)

Sep 12, 2010 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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The discriminatory manner in which the PPP Administration has undertaken infrastructural and other developments in Guyana is not new. As Mr Hoyte correctly stated on October 10, 2002, “Buxton is only a symbol, an overt symbol, of the anger and the resentment that has infected all the villages along the coast.”
Significantly, however, despite the PPP and President Jagdeo’s recognition of the unproductive nature and negative consequences of their policies, they lack the political will or vision to change. The obvious conclusion is that, it is the PPP regime that has to be changed.
“MARGINALISED”
Public recognition that their policy was non – productive came when President Jagdeo finally agreed in the “Dialogue” between himself and the late Opposition Leader Mr. Hoyte, to include a special programme for “marginalised villages”: a convenient term for villages that were the recipients of the PPP discriminatory policies.
Their identification was left to the political parties and the list was  prepared and presented to the PPP Administration.
What should have followed was a carefully crafted programme to remove these villages from the classification of “marginalised”. Regrettably, this programme was transformed into a list of token projects in the selected communities.
Predictably also, after the first four projects were identified and a token sum allocated for their implementation, Jagdeo forgot about the whole intent of his agreement with Hoyte and reneged on that commitment.
It was this failure to honour verbal commitments that resulted in the  signed “Communiqué” on May 6, 2003 at the conclusion of “Constructive Engagement” between the newly elected Opposition Leader, Robert Corbin, and Jagdeo.
An examination of section 3.2 of the signed Communiqué will confirm this analysis:
“2.3. Depressed Communities Needs.
President Bharrat Jagdeo and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Corbin, agreed that:
Ø All of the projects for the Phase I Communities have been completed.
Ø G$60Mn is immediately available for Phase II projects.
Ø The Leaders also agreed that the Committee would, within a month, provide a list of depressed communities, including those that were identified in the Report of 4th June 2003, from which they would identify those for implementation in Phase 11.”
Like the many failed Jagdeo promises, not a cent more was allocated after that $60Mn.
It is noteworthy that the follow-up Agreement to the Communiqué dated June 18, stated as follows:
“5.      Establishment of the Committee to Prepare a Comprehensive Development Programme for Region Ten:
The President has indicated that he has organised a small group to coordinate the activities of relevant Government and other agencies to place in a single document their various development programmes for Region Ten.
This document will be presented to the President within six (6) weeks.”
Like the marginalised villages programme, the development programme for Linden and Region Ten was a stillbirth.  Consequently, it came as no surprise when Jagdeo had to shamefully admit at his Buxton meeting that there was no development programme for that village.
What he ought to have confessed is that  there was no programme for the other marginalised communities across Guyana  as well, nor was there a development programme for Region Ten, Upper Demerara/Upper Berbice, that should have been ready six weeks after June 18, 2003.
EVIDENCE OF MARGINALISATION AND DISCRIMINATION
LINDEN: It is the absence of such a programme that made it politically expedient for Jagdeo to stage the recent Cabinet Outreach at Linden. Such an exercise required the Head of the Presidential Secretariat to travel with over five million dollars of taxpayers money, in cash, to disburse to those willing to carry out the biddings of the PPP.
The objective was mobilisation, for NCN’s use, to project the propaganda image of a caring, peoples’ President. The announcement of millions to be spent on projects, as was the case at Buxton, made the news headlines.
The truth, which all Lindeners knew, was clouded by the PPP propaganda: Those very projects, for which Jagdeo was finally announcing the release, or, the allocation of finance, were presented over the years by the Region Ten Democratic Council in its annual Budget, but rejected by the very Jagdeo Administration.
That Hollywood-style initiative, however, would not absolve the PPP of responsibility for the dilapidated infrastructure and the absence of economic development that is the legacy of that Party in Region Ten.
The deplorable state of the roads, from Linden to Kwakwani, and, from Linden to Lethem, leading to significant disruption to social and economic activities in the region, are only the most visible examples of PPP discrimination in that region.
HOPETOWN: Recently, the PNCR was obliged to expose another example of discrimination: the unconscionable demand by the GWI for the Hopetown Land Cooperative Society to pay three million dollars, merely to connect the water supply line to their new housing development area at Catherina’s Lust South.
When the Minister of Housing and Water, Irfaan Ali, attempted damage control after the PNCR’s press statement, his offer was to reduce the fee to one million, five hundred thousand dollars.
The Society did not ask GWI or the Government to provide the pipelines or install the network. The members of that society purchased in excess of five million dollars worth of materials to lay the entire pure water supply network in this area.
The pipelines would be installed by the society and their only request was for Guyana Water Inc., GWI, to facilitate the connection from GWI water main to their network.
The eighty-four homeowners will still have to pay their individual connection fee to GWI before they can connect from the network when their homes are constructed.
Clearly, the Hopetown Land Cooperative Society is being penalised for being self sufficient, when at nearby Cotton Tree Village, residents not only had their entire water pipe line network installed by Government, but recently benefitted from a new water treatment plant and pump station.
The society has however written to the Minister requesting that it be given equal treatment under the law as guaranteed under Article 149D of the Guyana Constitution.
They have also requested that he reviews his decision to impose a penalty fee for connection of water supply to the network at Catherina’s Lust South, West Coast Berbice.
The PNCR will be monitoring developments in this matter, but it is yet, another illustration of the lopsided policies of the Jagdeo Administration.
HENRIETTA: The five years of trials and tribulations faced by the residents of the new housing area at Henrietta, Essequibo Coast as they sought to obtain electricity supply to their homes, would provide an interesting story on human suffering and humiliation for an investigative journalist, as well as additional evidence of discrimination. During that very period, the PPP-organised squatting areas nearby received electricity. There is no shortage of evidence of marginalisation and discrimination in Guyana under the PPP, but this column is inadequate for that purpose. Buxton is but an example.
Consequently,  “No amount of meandering or government propaganda will fool right thinking Guyanese.”
[The conclusion in next week’s column will analyse the criminalisation of Buxton, which, like the economic situation, is reflective of the failed and non-existent policies of the PPP in the area of national security.]

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