Skip the curses; blame weak leadership and incompetence

Oct 03, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Two recent articles, in another section of the media covering Christopher Ram’s analyses, strike at the core of the major issues we have to confront with the Coalition administration, and provide ample evidence of the above claim. Ram’s evaluation of the Exxon scandal (it should be a scandal by now) makes it abundantly clear that we have a problem on our hands. It is impossible for the minister of Natural Resources, who is schooled in law, not to be aware of the infringements cited.
But where are the laws to govern this kind of culture? What does this tell us about the character and intent of some of our government ministers? As with the PPP, this is turning out to be a great source of disappointment, and forces us to reconcile the hard truths of such behavior. What seems to be unfolding is that the Coalition administration will carry on with the PPP’s lawlessness and suck at what was left of the PPP’s corrupt infrastructure while pulling down the PPP’s own culprits.
I have come to the conclusion that the Coalition doesn’t give a damn about the increased hardships that resulted from VAT, the children of sugar workers, who themselves struggle every day with unemployment and uncertainty, rice farmers whose concerns have been swept under the mat in the absence of a stronger lobby, the man in the street who struggles every day to make ends meet, our youth who increasingly see crime as a viable income opportunity, or persons who continue to be incarcerated for unjustifiable lengths of time for possession of minute amounts of marijuana. The Coalition ministers have become our new untouchables, living the privileged life while Guyanese suffer for the lack of a better government.
Granger has become a disaster. Going into the 2015 election, I had sought reasons to justify him to Guyanese as a good leader. I had considered his rise in the Army as a definite plus; and thought that with his experience in business (he owned the Guyana Review, if I remember well) he would have understood private sector concerns. This has been shown to be so wrong.
Whatever leadership skills he was thought to possess have come to naught as he seems to be pushed around by the PNC’s strong men on policy for the country, against all common sense. We should remember here that he had just landed in the PNC in the ‘absence of leadership material’ within the party, although this in itself is controversial with the presence of Winston Murray among others at the time. In an unhealthy turn of events, Granger and Congress Place seem intent on taking us back down the road from which we spent decades trying to recover. Based on this, I withdraw any support and consideration I had previously accorded him.
Our professionals must continue to face off with government all the time on these matters until laws are written which govern the kinds of abuses to which we are currently exposed are drawn into our legal framework. This is very likely not under this administration or the PPP’s.
Granger’s recently reported reference to our six major economic sectors as ‘curses’ can easily be seen as an attempt to de-emphasise government’s support for these sectors going forward. This is as crude and inconsiderate of the welfare of the individuals within these sectors as to be unthinkable. In my opinion, the use of such words, is the staff of the ignorant, and beg at the superstitious.
What has been spelled out in Ram’s letter of Oct 01/17 are some of the very real issues which have both poisoned our society and served as retardants to our social and economic progress. Many of these issues also had to be confronted by developed nations which rose to the challenge by establishing appropriate governance systems and safeguards to prevent discriminations and roll back other constraints to development. Books have been written of the subject of America’s race relations and many of Europe’s own internal feuds.
What is amazing was is that Granger reportedly had the gall to tell the diaspora that Guyana needs their brains and not their barrels, while at home his administration has given the private sector a proverbial shove, so that it is now virtually impossible for a public/private partnership to create jobs for our school leavers and the unemployed. This in itself is a policy that creates the need for barrels, while the diaspora will read the writing on the wall in the dailies and know that the man is not serious.
The Coalition administration’s sloth in addressing the issues highlighted in Ram’s letter suggests it is probably quite content to work with what obtained under the previous government and blame the outcomes on them, among other things. Also, these very same governance systems will very probably put an end to the administration’s employment policies. The politicians of our government have unfortunately demonstrated that they are political dinosaurs who will continue to mangle this country with their obsolete, backward and irrelevant ideas in today’s modern world of governance affairs. Old hacks they are – the Coalition itself is a patch job, putting new wood on an old frame. The house is bound to fall, which it is doing right now anyway.
I have already observed that poverty is not an act of God, but the result of weak leadership and a government intent on stealing from and robbing its citizens. The PPP delivered on this, and now the Coalition is demonstrating its truth also. A country has itself to blame for its government. So skip the curses and blame weak leadership and incompetence. To administer the correct medication, first determine the correct diagnosis.
Finally, we may see the Coalition proposing some fresh ideas going into 2020 that will very likely boost their image. These will most probably be borrowed from proposals I make and are available on the net. So we needn’t get fooled regarding their original intentions.
Craig Sylvester

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