A query over the welcome home for the Prime Minister

Apr 06, 2018 Letters

Dear Editor,
It is not decent or proper to have government/taxpayers host a welcome ceremony for Prime Minister (PM) Moses Nagamootoo on his return to Guyana after an expensive surgery funded by the people. The effort- via Letter to the Editor- to justify this by AFC supporter Jerrick Rutherford is scary. (“It is decent and the right thing to give the PM an official welcome back” (-KN April 5, 2018).
Lest the coalition partners, individually or collectively, forget, the taxpayers funded the PM’s overseas medical expenses. The oceanic disparity between access to such privilege by elected leaders and the connected comparatively to the masses is worrisome. To ask them to further fund a “welcome ceremony” is pushing it too far.
Were any among the ordinary people afflicted with the illness as the prime minister, if that person did not have the support of loved ones or having to disregard dignity and beg for support, he or she would have died.
The argument here is not about begrudging the prime minister such privilege and access- though there is preference for same to be universal and locally available- but the tone-deafness of thinking it makes good optics and smart politics to ask taxpayers to additionally fund a welcome ceremony for him.
Rutherford and those like him who share the same obtuse view need not forget the fact that Mr. Nagamootoo is PM because he offered himself to serve and was elected by the people to serve, not preside over them. There is no need to remind us the PM is serving us and deserves to be treated decently. He receives a salary and other benefits unlike most public servants. The society has not forgotten one of the first things the coalition did when they got elected to office was to give themselves huge salary increases.
Access to healthcare and the quality of healthcare for the masses remain a sore issue in our country. Given this fact, there has to be some temperance and prudence in the spending of the masses’ money when they are denied service and access to a fundamental human right.
There is no need to stray from the issue to avoid looking at the appropriateness of the issue. It is dishonest to claim that on the return of Leader of the Opposition, Desmond Hoyte, from the USA to Guyana, after a similar surgery as PM Nagamootoo, he was met with a welcome ceremony at the Timehri Airport.
It was made known in my letter Mr. Hoyte’s medical expenses, including travel, were not funded by the government/taxpayers. For clarification too, neither was the event having to do with the welcome he met on his return. This is the issue Mr. Rutherford; AFC, APNU and APNU+AFC Government. Deal with it.
Politics 101 advises that it makes sense not to do what you condemned your political rival/opponent for. A blogger’s comment on my letter about this issue said as much: Mr. Nagamootoo called the PPP “fat cats” and he wonders what the PM wants us to call him now. He was referring to the famous labelling by the then Opposition Member of Parliament to the PPP/C Government abuse of the taxpayers’ money and resources for personal aggrandisement.
Isn’t there any voice of reason left within this Coalition to be able to impress the rudimentary of avoidance in politics? Can nobody say, ‘This thing is going to look bad and backfire on us?”
It is not smart public relations to respond to me and justify what cannot be justified. It would be more prudent to demonstrate intellectual capacity to display better judgment and not make the attempt to insult the masses’ intelligence.
Good political public relations would be guided by ensuring at all times to have the competitive advantage. The competitive advantage is not secured justifying inappropriateness or acting in manner condemned when the shoe was on the other foot.
A press conference still remains the more strategic option to welcome the PM back. The people voted for this Coalition on the promise that things will change and get better. Mr. Rutherford, the continuation of an executive lawlessness you are encouraging is not decent and right. It is a continuation of the excesses and violation of public office, public trust and taxpayers’ money, not to mention poor politics and public relations.
Minette Bacchus.

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