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Why can’t Mr. Jagdeo see where he is going is wrong?
I am writing this viewpoint with one sincere motive in mind; for Mr. Jagdeo to look at the criticism therein, see if some are not valid and hope it points him in a direction that is not only logical and vital, but commonsensical (and I mean no insult).
I refer to his New Year message. Almost all the wishes he outlined in that delivery can be achieved if he embarks on democratic governance. You can’t help but feeling extremely anguished at what the President said. He is in charge of this country. He is known for micromanagement. He sends edicts to independent public institutions. Against this scenario, many of the positive things he wished for can be accomplished by him. He doesn’t do it and you wonder if he is just naturally a cynical human being.
Start with his desire of Guyana leading the world on climate change. Mr. Jagdeo spent $93 million Guyana dollars on a showcase that will bring us no tangible benefit as we search for development. That was the UNASUR Summit here in Georgetown. But look at our alleyways. Any engineer can tell Jagdeo that to rid Georgetown of its nasty sight will take less than such a sum.
How could Mr. Jagdeo have governed Guyana for one dozen years and remained unmoved by that unbelievable overgrowth? The jungles that we have for alley-ways are a climatic threat to the capital city. Even if it is City Council’s jurisdiction, we have long passed that story. Georgetown is part of our country. Let’s clear it up so our children can talk good things about it. The horrors of Le Repentir cemetery cannot leave Mr. Jagdeo unmoved.
He went on to add that in a decade’s time Guyana can possess high quality infrastructure. Is Mr. Jagdeo admitting that his twelve-year-old stewardship was a failure? Where is the beginning stage of this high quality infrastructure? The President called me ugly when I referred to the Berbice Bridge as an underdeveloped, sorry sight for a bridge built in the 21st century. But the proof was there and it was supplied by no other than a newspaper that Mr. Jagdeo has more than passing influence on.
When the bridge was officially opened the Guyana Times ran a supplement on it. The paper referred to many such constructions around the world, but did not publish a photograph of any other crossing. It couldn’t. Because all other (yes, I am saying all other) such structures would make the Berbice Bridge look like an eyesore.
Mr. Jagdeo is one of the most widely traveled presidents. He cannot look the traveling public in their eyes and say that the Berbice span is an attractive model. It is not. It is a simple structure, like an army-type bridge built during wartime. It is my honest opinion that it reflects badly on the legacy of Mr. Jagdeo. If the President says that we could have high quality infrastructure in ten years’ time, then he should tell us if he made a start and offer the evidence.
He made pronouncements on education. President Jagdeo presided over the demise of education in Guyana. The Parliament rushed through a bill the last day of 2010 upping the age for army entry while ignoring the plea of its own Minister of Education that school teachers’ retirement date should be sixty years instead of 55.
We take high class teachers and we give them to the Bahamas. We take brilliant soldiers and policemen and give them to New York when they reach 55. For an economist, Mr. Jagdeo is disappointing. He has to know that the starting point of development is human resource. I saw what happened at UG, and what happened has set that place back by sixty years. How can anyone believe in the sincerity of Mr. Jagdeo when party loyalists without competence are put in charge of tertiary education?
Where do we go from here? I doubt Mr. Jagdeo will be in the presidency in the foreseeable future. He literally has months left. If he is to achieve any recognition of his twelve-year-old reign, he needs to start moving on those dreams he enumerated in his New Year message. He spoke about consolidating democracy. Is he going to make a start? How much respect do we have for the police when they violate citizens’ rights on a daily basis? What rights do trade unions have when strikers could be dismissed en masse? Finally, why under his long presidency did he never award at least a ten percent wage increase?
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