2014 was a terrible year, and 2015 is expected to be worse if the PPP remains in office

Dec 29, 2014 Letters

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Dear Editor,
As we get ready to say good-bye to another year and ring in the new, more than 65 percent of Guyanese have become poorer and are unable to find good paying jobs, put food on the table or a roof over their heads. Many of them had a bleak Christmas and the new year seems hopeless for them.
But the PPP will have us believe that all is well but the main issues this year, as in previous years, has been poverty, crime, corruption, chronic unemployment, low wages, and contempt for the constitution and total disregard for the people. We are not hopeful that there will be any positive changes in 2015 under the PPP regime. In fact, since  Mr. Ramotar and his minority PPP cabal assumed power, 2013 was worse than 2012, and 2014 has turned out to be worse than 2013 and there is no reason for the people, especially the poor and the working class to believe that 2015 will be any different. It will be worse if the PPP regime remains in office.
The PPP’s latest effort to create a plan to reduce poverty, fight crime, end corruption, develop the economy and create jobs is based on raw propaganda as articulated by the do-nothing President and parroted by his cabinet colleagues. None of the above has been achieved, yet this regime continues to tell the people that Guyana is progressing. Since Mr. Ramotar took office three years ago, poverty, crime and corruption have increased five-fold and the minority PPP regime has done absolutely nothing about them other than to distort the truth by telling the nation that poverty, crime and corruption have been reduced.
The people are not buying their falsehood because they know that armed robberies and murders have increased all over the country and so is poverty. They also know that every government department has become more corrupt than at any other time in the history of the country, youth unemployment has risen to over 50 percent and the economy is in shambles as the country’s GDP spirals downwards. Under both the Jagdeo and Ramotar administrations, Guyana has changed for the worse and the majority of Guyanese have become poorer.
As reported in Kaieteur News last week, the PPP regime has obtained a US$15 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to help the poor communities resolve their conflicts peacefully and to improve police effectiveness and efficiency in fighting crime. Knowing how corrupt and dishonest the ruling cabal is, we believe that only a tiny amount of the money will go to the communities and the police, the bulk will be used to benefit themselves, relatives and friends as they have done in the past.
The hard core criminals have evidently raised the bar but it seems that the incompetent Minister of Home Affairs and the PPP regime have a high tolerance for crime because they have not done anything substantial to protect the innocent citizens from the armed bandits. In fact, crime is the least problem on their minds because each Minister spends about two million dollars of the taxpayers’ money a month on security to protect themselves, their properties and their families. It is very shameful and regrettable for the regime, especially the Minister of Home Affairs to pretend or distort the truth about the crime rate which is rapidly increasing.
The promise by the do-nothing President during the last election to reduce crime and corruption and to create 10,000 jobs in the first 100 days in office proved to be another of his empty and broken promises that they have long forgotten. Today, the crime phenomenon is worst and so is poverty, unemployment and corruption and the Jagdeo/Ramotar regime has no policy in sight to address these dreadful issues.
The PPP regime must accept full responsibility for their incompetence and failures. Instead, the Minister of Home Affairs is occupied with his new job as the General Secretary of his party, the Attorney General is busy trying to find ways how to improve his tarnished image and his vulgar, pimp and crooked behaviour and the Director of Public Prosecutions has developed an unsound mindset of how not to charge the PPP untouchables such as Nandlall and many others.
One method of exposing the untruths peddled by the PPP cabal is to shame them, but this is almost impossible to achieve, since the entire cabal does not accept responsibility for their inept actions. Basically, it is impossible to shame the PPP cabal who has no shame. The barefaced and bully Freedom House gangsters even have a website where they boldly falsify statistics relating to their performance in fighting crime, reducing corruption and creating jobs which are clear indications of their collective lack of shame, dishonesty and disrespect for the people.
One of the many challenges the people face, especially as it relates to corruption and wrongdoings by the PPP regime in general, is the lack of courage to speak out freely for fear of victimization which comes in many forms, including violent threats.
The Jagdeo/Ramotar cabal is well known for their vindictiveness and threats of violence on innocent citizens, including the Publisher of Kaieteur News, Glenn Lall and his staff, whose lives have been threatened by the AG and the GRA Commissioner who released the confidential tax information of Glenn Lall to private citizen Jagdeo. Not to mention the report by the Ombudsman, Justice Winston Moore, which found that trump-up charges were filed against the CEO of NBS Maurice Arjoon, Operations Manager Kent Vincent, and co-worker Kissoon Baldeo by former President Bharat Jagdeo, former NBS Chairman Nanda Gopaul and the DPP Shalimar Ali Hack.
In a society where no one in the government accepts responsibility for their actions, where incompetence is rewarded with promotion, corruption is applauded, crime is ignored, vulgar, abusive and cuss-down behaviour by Ministers is accepted and banditry thrives with help from some in the government, it is hardly likely that the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabal can ever solve any of these problems in 2015, recognizing that they are the greatest obstacles to the security of the people and economic growth and development. So the only option left for the people is to remove this corrupt and unrighteous PPP regime by any and every legal means available to them, including a revolution if needs be. This must be done immediately in order to save Guyana from further descending into the pits.
Asquith Rose and Harish Singh

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