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The people’s money belongs to the Consolidated Fund, not NICIL

May 17, 2012 Letters

 

 

DEAR EDITOR,
For the longest while I have argued that the PPP/C government feels justified in treating Guyanese the way they do because they view us in very limited terms. In the minds of the PPP/C government, we are considered a bunch of docile homo-sapiens incapable of applying the most basic and logical kind of reasoning. So deeply held is this negative view of the people by the regime that they have taken to making bold statements and engaging in certain actions, which undoubtedly call into question the constitutionality of those actions.
If my opinion of the PPP/C government’s views of Guyanese is flawed, how else do you justify the blatant act of holding the people’s money in NICIL and not in the Consolidated Fund? How else do you explain President Ramotar’s dismissive pronouncement on this matter, as he claims that the government is doing nothing wrong by holding the people’s money in NICIL?
Any government that respects its people would not only have concern for the legal ramifications of its actions, but would also have serious regard for its moral and ethical responsibility to the nation. So, assuming for one minute that Ramotar is right that there was no legal wrong committed with the PPP/C ‘stashing away’ the people’s money in NICIL, where is the moral and ethical consideration to respond in a manner which takes care of the reasonable expectation of the people?
Clearly, these considerations and responsibilities continue to be absent from the words and actions of members of the government, and my argument is that this can only be possible because the government has no regard for the people.
Over the years the actions of senior members of the PPP/C, including the president, have been most contemptuous towards the people, whom they seem to believe to be just a naïve bunch. They seem to fear not, whether the people find their actions to be outrageous. However, I wish to remind everyone that it was Thomas Jefferson who posited that, “When governments fear the people there is liberty. When people fear the government there is tyranny”. The question now being, is there liberty in Guyana or tyranny? The recent budget debates were another classic example of where the people’s intelligence came under attack.
I listened to a few of the budget debate presentations and was appalled to hear the PPP/C M.P, Madam Gail Teixeira, a woman whom I respect for her role in Guyanese politics, intimate that people are living in Guyana longer today, because of the PPP/C. I cringed when I heard the deliberate comment, but what was worse, was that similar comments were made by successive government M.Ps.
How can people feel so confident to make these massively arrogant statements, when they ought to know better? My belief is that they can only do so because they believe us to be a society of mindless beings. What utter disrespect!
It is no secret that countries, the world over, for the past two decades or so, have been experiencing a rise in life expectancy, owing to a number of international and other efforts. Take for instance, Somalia, a country plagued by ongoing civil wars, had a life expectancy rate of 56 years in 2011 as compared to 46 years in 1991. So the fact that Guyanese are living longer is not owing to the PPP/C ‘power’ to breathe ‘long life’ into us, and for which we must be ever grateful to them, but it is rather, a reality symptomatic of a wider global trend.
There are numerous examples of the PPP/C government’s ‘talking down’ to the Guyanese people, disrespecting us and smacking at our intelligence, and these uncivilized types of behaviour and actions must stop.
Several Guyanese, both in the parliamentary opposition and members of civil society, have sounded their voices on the NICIL issue. It baffles my mind why the government continues to be in denial and refuses to turn the people’s money over to the Consolidated Fund, where it belongs. Why this stubborn posture on an issue which is as clear cut as can possibly be, except of course, there is something sinister in this NICIL arrangement.
It is time for the government to fear the people!
Lurlene Nestor

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