‘Fibbulous’ Freddie must tell the truth

Mar 31, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
What I despise most in a person, is someone who deliberately and maliciously tries to deceive me. In fact, someone who lies. Fibbulous Freddie must tell the truth, if he wants to be taken seriously.
I’m aware that ‘fibbulous’ is not a word, but it seems appropriate to describe someone who misrepresents the facts, as Freddie Kissoon again did in his column on March 27, “No Guyanese voter can be so stupid not to see that 35 is 0.7 percent of 5000”.
Let me make this emphatically clear: This letter is not in defence of the PPP/C Administration, I’m merely just correcting a deliberate misconception.
In his column, Freddie Kissoon talks about living under the PNC, and compares that to life under the current PPP/C government. I must admit that I have not lived in Guyana for many years, but I did so under the PNC during the ‘60s and ‘70s.
The memory of a struggling nation torn apart by racial discrimination while our people suffered in food lines and bread lines, is reason enough why Guyanese should not be too eager to embrace the candidacy of David Granger as long as Robert Corbin remains in control of the PNCR.
Despite the image he portrays, Freddie Kissoon lives much better than the average Guyanese. He lives in a large, beautiful house in a neighbourhood that will see the value of his property ‘go through the roof’.
Freddie is much better off now than in the days of Burnham’s PNC government. If Freddie had a vehicle then, he would remember waiting for hours in long lines, hoping to buy gas for his car before the gas station runs out of petrol – a common ordeal for motorists in those days. He talks about seeing feces coming out of a lower apartment’s toilet when a tenant flushes the toilet on the upper floor.
Without asking what Freddie was doing in these people’s toilets, he should know that sewer problems are very common in most homes, even in New York, and nobody here blames Mayor Bloomberg or President Obama for this, they simply call a plumber.
But it would appear that at least the tenant had the use of toilet paper, something that was in very short supply during the Burnham era, forcing most Guyanese to use newsprint instead.
When I arrived in Guyana a few weeks ago, my suitcases were filled with clothing and gifts for friends and relatives; most of which I could have bought locally for less.
Under the PNC, I vividly recall traders and Guyanese returning home with bulging suitcases filled with bread, ordinary everyday foodstuff, toilet paper and spare parts; for what was not already banned, was not available in the country.
The PNC government simply had no foreign exchange for imports, and no credibility left to borrow. Out of desperation, a lot of Guyanese turned to trading; smuggling raw gold out to Trinidad and Brazil, selling it to get foreign exchange to buy food to take back to Guyana.
When I migrated from Guyana, the only foreign currency I was allowed to leave with, was the equivalent of G$100. Are those the days Freddie want us to forget, or want us to return to?
Food is plentiful in Guyana. A walk through the supermarkets is a sharp contrast to the empty shelves that greeted consumers during the PNC days that Freddie refers to.
Almost anything one can buy in New York is available in Guyana at competitive prices or less.
Is there corruption in this administration? You bet there is. But corruption was also rampant during the PNC administration, so much so that they ran the country bankrupt.
The youth that Freddie seems to be targeting, must be told the whole truth, not the truth according to Freddie Kissoon.
If the infrastructural development being done now is with aid from foreign governments, at least this shows the PPP/C government has credibility and the ability to honour its debts in the eyes of the lenders.
Burnham started major infrastructural development projects that he was unable to complete because the country was bankrupt, but Freddie’s not talking about those.
I have been guilty of accusing the PPP/C of attacking the PNC for their 28 years of mismanagement, as they are now in power and have been for the past 19 years, but I was wrong. In retrospect, they are perfectly right to do so.
The youth of today are too young to remember how Guyanese suffered during the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, and people like Freddie Kissoon are all too willing to sweep this shameful past under the rug.
This PPP/C government have had their share of failures, and I have been a major critic of their failed policies.
But Guyanese are better off and the country more prosperous than before. It is the right of every citizen to be critical of their government when things go wrong, and I have never given Jagdeo a free pass.
So criticize if you may Freddie, but let’s not forget our history, let’s not forget the past.
Harry Gill

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