PPPC thinks it can fool all of the people all the time

Sep 28, 2014 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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President Donald Ramotar has joined the queue of People’s Progressive Party Civic –PPPC – presidents who have systematically failed to conduct six successive local government elections over the past seventeen years.
Ramotar, however, unlike his predecessors, knows that times have changed. The population is impatient. People are tired of the same old dodgy excuses for postponement. They are tired of being fooled with false promises that local government elections will be held. Sooner, rather than later, the President must call elections. Time is running out for the PPPC.
Ramotar, unable to avoid the inevitable, has resorted to what the PPP has done since it entered office in 1992 – start its elections campaign with a massive spending spree of state funds in order to sway the electorate.  The current squandermania is aimed at winning votes from constituents and communities which the PPPC neglected for years.
Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr Frank Anthony, as elections approached, suddenly seemed to realise that the celebrated 125-year-old Georgetown City Hall was in danger of collapse and needed major restoration. He announced that the administration would expend $200 M to start work on the building. He expects to reap the gratitude of civil society for this act of civic beneficence.
Minister in the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development Norman Whittaker unilaterally launched a $500 M ‘Clean-Up My Country Programme.’ The city has been in dire straits through the terrible tenures of Ministers Harrypersaud Nokta, Clinton Collymore, Kellawan Lall and Ganga Persaud before him. Whittaker, as local government elections approach, turned his attention to the Albouystown, Bourda and Stabroek Markets and the urban drainage network. He then, in a magnificent gesture of generosity, also handed over brush cutters to the ten Neighbourhood Democratic Councils and a fogging machine to the Regional Democratic Council in the Essequibo Islands-West Demerara Region (No.3). Great gifts!
Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai made a spectacle of presenting school uniform material to eight villages in the Upper Mazaruni sub-district of the Cuyuni-Mazaruni Region (No. 7). She has also been making headlines by handing over all-terrain vehicles to the Toshaos of several hinterland villages, as if they were personal gifts rather than administrative necessities. She had, earlier this year, tried to secure $1.1B for the Amerindian Development Fund in the 2014 national budget, but this was disapproved. The reason for disapproval was the discovery that the payment to so-called community support officers was not likely to be utilised for Amerindian community development at all. It was, rather, to recruit and pay stipends to young activists for the PPP election campaign.
Minister of Education Priya Manickchand waited over six months and still seems not to be ready to disburse the grand grant of G$10,000 promised to the families of children at nursery, primary and secondary levels. The money was earmarked in the 2014 national budget in March 2014 ¯ long before the start of the new school year. Disbursement, however, was delayed in order to ensure the greatest public impact on the PPP election campaign. Yes, we cannot hand out the grants yet!
Minister in the Ministry of Finance Juan Edghill has been assigned to the Upper Demerara-Berbice Region (No. 10) to take over from the veteran candidate Samuel Hinds who ‘lost’ the Region in 2011. Edghill went on a binge of promises to sway the distrustful Lindeners who have been frequently fooled by the PPP before. The people want proper Linden-Kwakwani and Linden-Lethem highways. Edghill took the low road offering only to complete minor or ongoing projects ¯ the re-construction of the One-Mile Primary School; the extension of the Upper Demerara Hospital; a health centre at Christiansburg; a nurses’ hostel at Kwakwani and small-scale drainage, road, and other infrastructure works. No highway, guys!
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, exiled to the East Berbice-Corentyne Region (No. 6), opened the PPP election campaign with an abundance of frothy promises.  His visit was timed to coincide with the donation of netbooks to residents of Lesbeholden, Black Bush Polder through the One Laptop Per Family Programme. Hinds made lavish promises that the government would be installing road lights along the deadly Corentyne Highway and would complete much-promised ‘remedial’ works along the 40 km East Bank Berbice roadway. Sorry Sam. Berbicians heard all that before and won’t be fooled again this time.
The PPPC is now in full election mode. It has deliberately delayed development projects so that they can be implemented and completed closer to the expected elections. The people, after 22 years of PPPC mis-spending, are suspicious of the motives behind the PPP’s new campaign promises. The PPP, for sure, will continue to squander state funds, not its own money, to try to fool the people to support its election campaign.
President Donald Ramotar who is leading the campaign seems to have forgotten President Abraham Lincoln’s famous adage: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

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