We the people have to demand that government addresses this dire issue of corruption

Nov 04, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
As Frederick Douglass once stated “power concedes nothing without a demand.” We the people of Guyana have to demand, have to pressure and force government, if we have to, to seriously address this dire issue of corruption and crime in our country and equally the President’s slothful posture in giving his assent to those extremely important bills the people want to pass.
Guyana needs a government, the same or most preferable, a new government that is more caring about the concerns of the people. We really need a government that will take a more serious approach with the real issues that are affecting and plaguing our citizenry, such as large scale unemployment, crime, an unprecedented level of corruption, domestic violence, high vat, high cost of living, the gratuitous assaults on the poor, the cavalier spending of taxpayers’ monies by government bodies and a broken education system that continues to fail our future work force. We need a leader with the ability to build a working consensus to tackle the real people issues that continue to denigrate this beautiful land of ours.
The political gamesmanship and uncalled for egoistical battles of our elected representatives continues to contribute to our country’s state of affairs.
It is time for the people of Guyana – all races, class and status – to take up that right to recall government and elected officials to their duty and their obligation, and above all, to exercise that right to share in the decisions of government – decisions which shape our lives, everything that make one’s life worthwhile such as family, work, education, how we raise our children and how we rest our heads.
We as Guyanese must be conscious and cognizant of the ever-present fact that it is the government of the day that shapes one’s life with the decisions ‘we’ as a people allow it to make. When as a people we fail to act and demand these elected ‘servants’ of government to carry out their respective constitutional mandate, it only empowers them to not heed to the demands of the people.
Government’s relentless pursuit to forcefully have the Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Amendment Bill to be just accepted by the opposition, which represents the majority of the people’s interest, is nothing but ridiculous. Is this government serious?
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh is arguably one of the best debaters in parliament, and I would match him with the likes of former M.P Aubrey Norton, Winston Murray, Khemraj Ramjattan, to name a few. He posits that the (AML/CFT) Bill is of such importance, that it should not be made a ‘subject of political bartering’. Isn’t this what politics embodies, compromise, negotiation, cooperation, give and take, finding the common ground and even bartering?
His pigeonholing of the time span the opposition had from May 2013 to make their contributions as reckless behavior is shocking and outrageous. I wonder how he would categorize the several years his government’s had.
This critical piece of legislation is one that requires the time for careful and insightful scrutiny so the possibilities of loopholes are non-existent or very minimal.
All stakeholders who have vociferously ventilated their positions on the importance of having this bill passed, should also express the same level of concern and aspiration for the already passed bills in the national assembly to be given the president’s assent, more specifically the Public Procurement Commission. This bill will certainly reduce the extremely high level of corruption on a national scale. Is this not what the people want? Isn’t a government’s foremost desire to honor the request of the people who elected them to serve their interest?
When we the people of this land fail to recall government, elected and appointed officials to the mandate to ‘serve’ the interest of the people, then the dream and the essence of the words carved in our motto, of one people, one nation, one destiny, would never be attained. It would be nothing more than a fleeting illusion, a present fantasy.
Jermaine Figueira

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