The PPP regime is in denial

Oct 23, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Ten months after the Jagdeo/Ramotar regime promised to end corruption and create jobs, we are left to wonder what the regime has done so far. Not only have they not reduced corruption and created jobs, but they seem incapable of easing the burden on the poor and the working class.
With unemployment on the rise, the PPP regime has been shown to be ignorant of the economic reality in the country. Mr. Ramotar’s most recent statement that he will modernize Guyana is nothing more than a propaganda exploit.
After 20 years of PPP reign, Guyana remains a semi-primitive society, where people have to wait for extremely long hours in lines for service from every government department/agency, the traffic lights are in a mess, public hospitals are in shambles, and public schools and UG are collapsing.
In addition, constant power outages and the lack of potable water have become the norm, Georgetown is now the garbage/stink city instead of the Garden City, crimes have spiraled out of control and corruption has reached new heights never seen before in Guyana.
But the fact that the cabal says the country is developing shows that the PPP regime is in denial.
President Ramotar’s refusal to change course is truly a nightmare. He has failed in his most important duty as President to correct the failed and corrupt policies of the previous regime.
In office for almost a year, Mr. Ramotar did little more than play night-watchman over the policies he inherited from Jagdeo.
He did not even bother to give any of his predecessor’s policies a little tweak to convince the nation that he is making the necessary changes to ease the burden on the poor and the working class.
This type of behaviour is difficult to explain to the average Guyanese, except for the fact that coming from the corridors of Freedom House, it is a normal course of action.
We had hoped that having experienced the consequences of Jagdeo’s unpreparedness to deal with crime, corruption, and the trafficking of narcotics, President Ramotar would have been better prepared to address them. By now, his government should have had plans to restructure the country’s fiscal, monetary and trade policies to increase economic output and provide greater economic opportunity for the people, while at the same time tackling corruption, crime, and the illegal trafficking of drugs.
But this PPP regime seems to have come to office with nothing more than dreams of ending corruption and the delusionary idea that employment can be created without an economic development plan.
Apart from that, the 2011 elections proved to be an act of providence for the combined parliamentary opposition parties—AFC and APNU.
The opposition’s unique perspective of being the architect of a majority in Parliament gave them a better-than-average chance of developing strategies that could begin the process of correcting past mistakes and charting a new course towards real economic development.
For the opposition to be taken seriously by the people, it has to pressure the Jagdeo/Ramotar regime to reduce VAT, create jobs, provide tangible increases in wages for civil/public servants, and establish the Procurement Commission and an Anti-Corruption Agency.
But the AFC and APNU have squandered this rare privilege and instead spend their time engaged in squabbling over inconsequential issues, unrelated to the reality of the country’s economic and social dilemma and the urgent need to radically change the perilous state of the poor and the working class.
This is clearly revealed by the fact that the list of issues the majority opposition has dealt with in Parliament is hardly recognizable in anything that would improve the lives of the poor and the working class.
That there has been no real progress by the majority opposition is not surprising. We have pointed out in previous letters that the PPP regime is lacking in substance, but are we to believe that the combined opposition is no better prepared to tackle and improve the country’s economic and social problems.
For more than a decade, Guyana’s finances have been grossly mismanaged by the Jagdeo regime. The depth of the country’s financial crisis cannot be denied. Yet the PPP regime is in denial of this reality.
They do not seem to grasp the urgency of the situation. What is required is honesty, and a set of realistic goals to weed out corruption, create jobs and chart a pragmatic course that will improve the lives of the poor and the working class.
Because the PPP cabal controls the purse strings, it has been very easy for them to influence the electorate with baseless promises and illusory goals. The poor and the working class has for too long been the victim of this kind of crooked leadership. The PPP politics over the years has been nourished by racial voting which it has used to make a section of the population gullible. Its leaders have always said that the people are their greatest asset.
Yet they have been selling them a pie in the sky at election time rather than telling them the truth. Wake up people!
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh

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