The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Mar 15, 2015 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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The “Cummingsburg Accord” is a ‘social contract’ between A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance For Change ¯ the combined majority political parties ¯ and the people. It aims at creating a just society, a stable political environment with a prosperous economy. It is a commitment to change the political culture of this country and the way we see ourselves and each other.
APNU and the AFC are already more than two parties; they have started a movement for national unity. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The momentum that the coalition has generated is evidence of the people’s satisfaction and their desire for change. United, the people stand a better chance to fulfil the national destiny. Divided, they fall to the tactics of the PPP which could return to office and perpetuate its mismanagement of the affairs of this nation.
Life in Guyana could continue to be nasty and brutish for the majority. The truth is that the Guyanese people are weary. They are fed up with the PPP’s winner-takes-all strategy for holding on to power at any cost; its divide-and-rule tactics that foment hatred and foster hostility and its one-size-fits-all village policy that impoverishes our countryside and hinterland.
Guyanese will have endured, by 11th May, over twenty-two and a half years of PPP corruption and incompetence. The people have experienced the erosion of their quality of life and the corrosion of their cherished national institutions, particularly our National Assembly.
They have witnessed how political empowerment at the national, regional and local levels has been damaged; how the environment has been mutilated; how individual equality for the young and social protection for the aged have diminished and how public health care and human safety have been degraded.
The APNU-AFC coalition, therefore, will adopt a unified approach and bring an end to:
–    Cronyism at high levels, that is a drain on our financial resources and is blocking our development;
–    Crime, that is bleeding the lives and bodies of our women and youths, and scaring away investors;
–    Corruption in the law-enforcement and regulatory agencies in the mining, forestry sectors; and
–    Constitutional abuse by the President, Cabinet and executive branch of the government.
APNU and the AFC have collaborated for more than three years in the National Assembly. They worked together to elect an AFC nominee as Speaker and worked together towards making government more transparent. They demanded the reduction of oppressive taxation and disapproved wasteful expenditure in the budget.
APNU and the AFC were together when they adopted a concerted approach to the passage of enabling legislation for: Anti-Money-Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism legislation; the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission; conduct of Local Government Elections by 1st August 2014; a Motion of No-Confidence in an arrogant administration; resolutions calling for investigations into trafficking in persons; the deaths of Amerindian children from gastroenteritis, river accidents and much more.
APNU and the AFC have worked together for the people of this country over the past three years in the 10th Parliament and will continue to collaborate for the good of the people of Guyana in the 11th.
The APNU-AFC coalition will bring a fresh, new way of looking at this great land that God has given us. Life in Guyana must not be a nightmare for the next generation as it has been for the last two decades. Neither should the future be an idle dream. The Coalition must aim at creating a more humane society with a high level of culture.
Schoolchildren, for example, must be able to embark on a bus in Crabwood Creek on the Corentyne River and drive all the way to Sand Creek on the Rupununi River. Children must be able to get close enough to observe the world’s largest anteater, the world’s largest eagle, the world’s largest freshwater fish, the world’s largest river otter, the world’s largest rodent, the world’s largest river turtle; South America’s largest cat and largest snake…right here in the Caribbean’s largest, natural zoological park – Guyana’s hinterland.  Children must grow up loving Guyana and looking forward to living long in the land which God gave them. They ought not to have to race to migrate.
The backward PPP administration is too blind to see the beauty of this country. It is deaf to the cries of our people. It is too lame to provide opportunities for the people to prosper. The PPP has refused to invest in the infrastructure of highways and bridges that would integrate our people and our regions and promote social cohesion and economic growth.
Guyanese will celebrate their fiftieth anniversary of Independence in May 2016 and, then, will be able to look back with satisfaction at the restoration of the nation by the APNU-AFC coalition.
The future beckons. The Coalition will assure everyone, but most especially women and youth, that it will work towards ensuring Guyanese that they can have a good life. The parties together will be able to achieve much more than if they remained separate. The whole is greater than the sum of all its parts!

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