Latest update January 28th, 2025 12:59 AM
Sep 16, 2017 Letters
Dear Editor,
The role of the Opposition is to question the government and hold them accountable to the people. A responsible press does very much the same. But while most journalists adhere to the principles of their noble profession, there are those who are forced to compromise their integrity to protect their jobs from the wrath of a vindictive government that is determined to deceive the nation. So the burden is on the shoulders of the People’s Progressive Party, the Opposition, to compare the public pronouncements of government to its actions, which are often deceptive and superficially attractive in appearance, until they are examined more closely. As Dem Boys would seh, “de Granger Administration prapa mamaguying de people.”
In fact, this APNU+AFC charade is window dressing for good governance.
The Granger Administration operates at two levels consistent with it duplicitous character. It utters all the right buzzwords about governance for public consumption, but in reality, it practices something very different.
The government invites the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to work on a Green strategy, but it is destroying the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) by not implementing it. Although President Granger promised that Guyana would have a 100% renewable power supply by 2025, they are now talking about a 50 megawatt fossil fuel power plant which is something totally different.
They involve the United Nations and the Carter Center on Constitutional Reform, but do everything to delays efforts to reform the Constitution. A United Nations Advisor, David Robinson, is presently in Guyana, to help the government fight corruption. This UN Advisor has already drafted an anti-corruption work plan which sets out activities to strengthen Guyana’s anti-corruption regime.
The truth is, this government is only interested in fighting corruption if it can somehow be traced to a PPP official or former minister. The Special Organized Crimes Unit -SOCU has been used as part of the government’s witch-hunt campaign to harass and intimidate former President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo and members of the PPP, but chooses to ignore the highly controversial and corrupt Pharmaceutical Drug Bond deal that is an obvious payback for campaign contributions made to the APNU+AFC coalition during the 2015 elections. But like my colleague, the Hon Bishop Edghill wrote in a recent letter, “I caution these experts and international agencies that they must not be used as a ‘fig leaf’ to cover the current cesspool that exists in the bowels of the current Government’s bureaucracy. “
I therefore urge these International bodies to look beyond the witch-hunting exercise that they will be guided towards, and investigate the true source of corruption plaguing the nation, the Government of Guyana. After all, the credibility of the United Nations and the British Government are at stake here.
As a strong advocate for ethnic unity, I was pleased with the establishment of the Ministry of Social Cohesion. But how serious could the President have been when he selected the most divisive and contemptuous person in the form of Amna Ally to run that Ministry? And although she is no longer there, how could this government ever achieve social cohesion, when:
· The Granger school buses are always too filled to stop for children as they pass through the communities.
· When those Guyanese who were perceived to be supporters of the PPP/C were either fired or forced to resign after the 2015 elections.
· When 1,972 Amerindian Community Service Officers were fired because of their association with the PPP.
· When the government removed 6,000 solar panels that were purchased for the Hinterland Household Electrification Programme and used them instead at the Ministry of the Presidency and State House.
· And when former PPP ministers and officials are constantly targeted and harassed by SOCO as part of the APNU+AFC ongoing witch-hunt campaign against the PPP.
There are several documented instances where His Excellency, the President and his ministers have deliberately and knowingly misinformed the nation that the PPP left the treasury empty. But the questions remain, how can the treasury be empty when:
· They gave themselves a 50% salary increase mere weeks after taking office?
· They urge Guyanese to use the Georgetown Public Hospital to avoid paying the 14% VAT imposed on private hospitals, and shamelessly send ministers to Ireland for medical treatment at taxpayers’ expense?
· They splurge taxpayers’ money on trips overseas; on private jet charter flights; on $500,000 a month house rental for junior ministers and $1.5 million a month to rent a house for a senior Cabinet Minister?
· They criticize the PPP for spending $2 million on dental work for a former PPP Minister, but spent over $4 million in medical bills on minor surgery for one of their own?
In our last Budget, the theme was, “The Good Life Beckons.” Yet this government introduces austerity measures in the same budget that takes away any hope of ordinary Guyanese ever enjoying that “good life”.The President tells residents at the West Berbice Expo earlier this year that Region 5 has established itself as “a bastion of Guyana’s food security”, yet allows MMA to evict 41 cash-crop farmers from the lands they cultivated there and took away their livelihood.
HARRY GILL
PPP/C Member of Parliament
Jan 28, 2025
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