PPP’s bungling strategy with a plethora of IMCs

Dec 23, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
We have been without local government elections for the past 19 years and the ruling party is not in the least bothered by this sorry state of affairs and the impact it has on the development of our beloved country at the grassroots level. The ruling party is hell bent on playing party politics with the legislation at the parliamentary level whilst allowing its Minister of IMCs(Local Government), who is so empowered by the current Act, to fire any and everyone & replace as he sees fit with party supporters in anticipation of the next planned local government elections. The Guyanese people are not stupid; it has taken them 18 years to break from the shackles of race &fear mongering and deliver the PPP with a minority rule in Parliament and they are carefully watching the way these monsters are managing this economy. The one laptop per family elections gimmick is now on hold awaiting the next elections. The judiciary is being overburdened and abused by the ‘learned’ Attorney General anytime they cannot get their way and crying foul whenever they lose. It is amazing how quickly the judiciary acts when the State has a matter to be heard. I noticed Mr. Raj Singh complaining recently in the press about the GCB matter not being heard after more than 6 months. The powers that be are holding the judiciary hostage since they are in charge of confirming the appointments of the Chief Justice and the Chancellor. The well respected Counsel, Nigel Hughes, wrote a very refreshing article about this recently but more and more persons need to come out of the woodwork and call a spade a spade and not wait until they are personally affected by the victimization of these hoodlums.
The Government has so many major problems and concerns with important segments of the economy and widespread allegations of corruption in almost every government department but the only 4 Ministries which are active seem to be the Ministry of Sports & the Ministry of Local Government now specifically tasked with forming IMCs, the Ministry of House lots&Pageants(has really forgotten about Trade & Commerce) and the Ministry of Legal Affairs (outsourcing) tasked with outsourcing of his Office. I am sure the President is or should be very disturbed at the performance of this particular Minister as he has been a tremendous source of embarrassment to himself, his family, his law firm, his Ministry, the government and the people of Guyana. He has reduced this once highly prestigious position of Attorney General to a pulp and continues to sink it further every day. He has even now resorted to writing letters to the media comparing himself with the great Cheddi Jagan. Cheddi must be turning in his grave or turning up the waters since he was cremated I think. Cheddi would never have appointed such an incompetent person for such a respected position. Prior to accepting the AG’s position he had lost every single cricket matter that he litigated against and is now desperately trying to save his career by trying to litigate a solution through a Cricket Act empowering the Sports Minister to hire and fire as he sees fit just as the Local Government IMC Minister does. This does not work!
Even without the legal power, the Sports Minister has already illegally embarked on forming IMCs and disbanding the legally elected bodies in the cricket & horse racing fraternities with both turning out to be colossal failures. He has carefully sidestepped the football fraternity obviously, out of fear of FIFA. Clive Lloyd was recruited to be the head of the IMC in September 2011 and also to be a campaign figurehead for the PPP in 2011 during elections but disappeared during the elections and was strongly rebuked by Jagdeo for this absence during the elections to woo the black votes. Clive allowed himself to be used by this Government and has severely damaged his credibility and reputation and lost a huge chunk of his star capital that he had. His acceptance of the IMC head made him lose his directorship on the WICB and his position as head of the Cricket Committee of the ICC.  Surely, it has been proven that IMCs are not the best path for the resolution of such thorny issues. It is crystal clear that the agenda of the Government is to govern through IMCs and the legislation of powers to MInisters which strategies have proven to be huge failures. They want to hijack and nationalize the cricket board for political reasons and use same as a campaign tool in the next elections. I say hands off cricket and all other sporting organizations!!! The opposition needs to step up to the plate and represent the people of Guyana and not allow the Government to take over sports and go backwards like communists Cuba, Korea and China. It was pleasing to see the AFC head, Mr. Ramjattan speaking out very forthrightly about this grave injustice by the Government. Pay the same relentless obsession to the woes of the state corporations and entities, GUYSUCO, GPL, GWI, UG, NDIA, NICIL, etc by employing competent persons to manage them and hopefully something good will come out of it.
Intikhab Sankar

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