One year of enigmas, secrets and Simona Broomes

May 22, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

In analyzing the first year of the Coalition’s balance sheet, comparisons and juxtapositions have to be used. Life is about comparisons. Bernie Sanders is the most radical, left wing presidential candidate the Democratic Party ever produced, when you compare him to Jerry Brown and Barack Obama. Scandinavia has the most successful capitalist system when you compare it to the United States. The present Pope is more liberal when you compare him to his predecessors.
Juxtapose the Coalition’s first year in power with Hoyte’s, Cheddi Jagan’s, Janet Jagan’s, Jagdeo’s, Ramotar’s first year and there is very little for Coalition leaders to boast about. Hoyte stands out as the president with the most dynamic, innovative, phenomenal first year in office. Burnham’s initial year from 1968 to 1969 did not produce anything startling because the Cold War forced him to tread carefully with the West. Cheddi and Janet Jagan, Jagdeo, Ramotar and Granger did not have a transformational first year in power.
If you make the comparison with Granger and his predecessors dating back to 1992, then it has been an ordinary first year. The honesty factor is an automatic response when Granger’s name comes up. The integrity factor automatically flows from your lips when you discuss David Granger. But even the lay person anywhere in this world is conscious enough to know that a leader’s integrity, though vital, cannot create a great country if other leadership factors are not there.
An entire year has come and gone since the historic coalition between a perceived Indian leader (Nagamootoo) and a widely regarded leader of an African party (Granger). But except for a few accomplishments which were not transformational in nature , where is the vision, innovative thinking and new directions? Where is the Hoytean courage, Hoytean risk-taking capacity, Hoytean transformational pathways? The answer is there weren’t any. They may come next year and they may come as a deluge, but there was none in the first year of the Granger/Nagamootoo team. On the contrary, the first year of the Coalition is one of cascading enigmas.
Let’s look at some of them and when doing so, you see that vision is badly and sadly lacking.
We start with the Ministries. Where was the vision of the Coalition Government when it stuck with an inherited Ministry of Amerindian Affairs (now renamed Indigenous People’s Affairs) and placed two Ministers in it but removed the Ministry of Youth? Guyana’s population has the Amerindian people at ten percent. Give or take a few thousand, it amounts to fifty thousand. The percentage of youths (if your cut off point is 32 years of age) is over sixty percent. Why would you not want a Ministry of Youth? This is a huge enigma inside the corridors of power. Whose idea was this? Whoever it was, it shows no vision.
Next is Simona Broomes. Every Guyanese who follows political trends would have known a lady named Simona Broomes who was the president of the women’s mining association and a human rights activist. Because of her rights activism, she was given the perfect fit in the Ministry of Social Protection. Someone in the Government showed a lack of vision and planted Ms. Broomes in a ministry she should not be in – a ministry where she has jurisdiction over the mining sector. With over twenty-five ministries, someone chose to put Ms. Broomes where she should not be. Is that vision in leadership?
Let us discuss another enigma and it involves Broomes again. Why was Broomes removed from her perfect portfolio? If ever a minister suited a human rights job, it was Simona Broomes at the Ministry of Social Protection. It remains an enigma why she was removed. Some people would argue that enigmas dominate the landscape of the first year of the Coalition in power when you think of the Harmon China trip and Noel Holder in the Ministry of Agriculture.
From enigmas, let go to secrets.
Guyana truly earned the description of land of secrets during the Jagdeo regime. Under the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabal, Guyanese came to hate the PPP because of the closet of secrets. It seems the Coalition has its closet too. Guyanese cannot know the name of the company through which donations have to be made for the construction of the D’Urban Park project. Guyanese cannot know the lawyer who is advising the committee that is advising the government on the contents of the forensic audits. We end with the final enigma; retroactive to January 2015 the five highest paid UG officers will get a ten percent increase, while the perennial cry for salary increase of UG staff continues. Wasn’t a bad year; wasn’t a good one either.

---

---