Granger in the hot seat…“Govt. Ministers lack responsibility and accountability”

Oct 09, 2013 News

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The Conclusion of the interview with the Opposition Leader
KN: Given the chance to work with two Ministers of Government who would they be?
Granger:  Wow, uh, that is a hard question to answer. I think you have to look at an issue in governance called ministerial responsibility. The National Assembly, for the last 20 months, has emphasized importance of asserting the authority of Parliament and the accountability of Ministers. I do not see any Minister who would stand out as being particularly committed to the principles of Ministerial authorities. We have had to bring measures about the death of children from gastroenteritis; I was not happy with the response from that Minister.  We had to bring measures about riverine deaths, and I was not happy with the response from the Public Works Minister.  We had to bring motions about trafficking in persons; and the list goes on…We have a request for the deduction of Value Added Tax (VAT) at the Minister of Finance and we are simply not satisfied.  There are significant problems in all the Ministries.

KN: What would you say is the biggest problem that is holding back progress in Guyana?
Granger: Poverty. It is too much and that prevents people from achieving their full potential. Not far away from that is the problem of education; and poverty actually keeps children from going to school. Some people can’t even afford lunch and transport. You asked about one (problem), but let me tell you, another is insecurity; people have to feel safe. Women must be safe; they mustn’t be victims of domestic abuse. Young girls must feel safe, they must not be trafficked and working people must be safe to walk the streets. Our fisherfolk must be safe from pirates, our miners must be safe from bandits and ordinary people must be safe from the type of crime that destroys a society.
KN: Do you think APNU has been doing enough work to inform its constituency of the implications of all the projects and everything else that the opposition has been fighting against?
Granger: We have visited over five dozen communities in the process of getting our message across and knowing the problems facing citizens. We spoke about the road to Barbina being flooded… in fact, instead of fixing the road; the government actually gave the villagers a boat to traverse what should be a part of a road. The main stelling for Kumaka—a Region bigger than Trinidad and Tobago—is a disaster. How can a government tolerate those things? That Region has to endure 18 hours of blackout a day. It has no bank, and people are walking around with millions of dollars in black plastic bags. We go, listen, and inform, so we have been getting the message out and more importantly we have been getting their message in.
KN: Understood, but do you think that the ordinary man, who would be most affected should these projects fail, understands and knows exactly how it will affect him directly?
Granger: Well, I cannot give an absolute guarantee, because there is a limit to how far we can go. Even though I have been to all ten regions, we cannot afford to go to every single village in the country or every single ward in the city. But we have members who are in touch with the masses. Also, judging from our outreaches, I would say we have done effective work. In addition one of our major parties in the partnership—the PNC—publishes New Nation and that gets into the hands of ordinary people. We have television broadcasts and we have weekly press conferences, we are very confident that the message is getting out there… but there is always room for improvement.
KN: Is the Alliance For Change a good support opposition party in parliament?
Granger: The AFC is not in any alliance with us, we don’t have an MOU. But we ensure that anytime we are going to parliament and there is likely to be a contentious issue, we have a meeting. We seek support for each other’s measures. They respond to the needs of their own constituency and we respond to the need of ours, but as far as possible we try to cooperate.
KN: Where do you think most of your support comes from… the rich, poor or middle class?
Granger: I would say that the majority of our supporters are poor people… the ordinary people. There is a saying that God loves ordinary people; hence he made so many of them. So they are the majority and we think we are favoured amongst them. The middle class are certainly aware of the issues and rich people have understood our message because they know that their wealth will be jeopardized if society was unstable of unsafe. So they understand what we are doing and they have supported us as well. I would say that we have enjoyed support at all levels, but the poor clearly want their lives to be transformed…our focus is to improve the life of the ordinary man.
KN: Has APNU been doing enough to help the poor?
Granger: APNU has been doing all that is possible with its resources, it is never enough because, there are still too many poor people.
KN: Are you familiar with Vybz Kartel aka ‘the teacher’ from Jamaica? He asked why ghetto youths should fight for the upper class when all they do is approach them with fancy suits and talk instead of an approach to bridge that gap. Kartel’s Guyanese fan base is dominated by the less fortunate. Do you think that APNU puts itself in a position where it can effectively communicate with the less fortunate and have them feel like they are priority?
Granger: We emphasize with their situation, and we are trying to change the circumstances under which they live. That is why we feel that education is the social mobility to move them out of their poverty, and one of the first measures I put in place as Leader of the PNC, was to create an institution called the BEST which only last week presented $660,000 in bursary to students. We are hoping to lift people out of poverty, not simply to go around to the poorer areas and encourage people to be satisfied, we want to get them out of there and education is the best way to get them out and get them employment. So we are dissatisfied… We don’t want to see slums, we want to see Guyanese moving out of that area and be educated. This will help us to not necessarily become a middle class nation; but an educated nation. That is how we are going to banish poverty.
KN: During the election campaign, the youth gave a tremendous amount of support to APNU, do you think that after two years, the youth are satisfied with the work APNU has been doing and would still vote APNU come next election?
Granger: We are not satisfied we have done enough. We have designated 2013 ‘the year of the youth’ and we have moved to bring about change by embracing education at the University of Guyana. Education is most capable of transforming the lives of youths. We have not been able to provide sufficient jobs and that is because we are simply an opposition party; we don’t have the resources to do that. However, the task is not over; we are not resting. We are going to continue the struggle. We have taken a charge that every University student will be guaranteed a job within one year under APNU… As it is now, people speak of an expanding economy, but whatever growth is taking place is jobless growth…I have seen qualified people working at restaurants – mopping floors and selling pizzas – and working as conductors. I’m not saying anything is wrong with it, but we need to train engineers and scientists … those young people instead of having low paying jobs, can be agents of developments in Guyana … I have big dreams for the Guyanese youth, but we have not been able to fulfill those dreams because the government doesn’t share that vision.

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