May 2015: Death of a dream

Jul 15, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There is a crescendo of disappointments with Minister Simona Broomes. The video puts her in the wrong. The reaction of many is that this type of ministerial behaviour is what Guyanese saw from PPP leaders. With incidents like this, I get a flood of emails and text messages. The point is the same – our new leaders are like the PPP’s.
My confusion revolves around the singling out of Broomes. For me, the Broomes incident is just more one example of the failure of May 2015 to offer Guyana an alternative political culture. Why the fuss with Broomes? There are many Broomes in the coalition government. Minister Volda Lawrence commenting on Broomes’s action said the APNU+AFC coalition came into government to make changes.
If Minister Lawrence is sincere with that comment, then Broomes’s action constitutes a peccadillo and pales in substance and significance with the rejection of the culture of change that the APNU+AFC regime is guilty of. If Minister Lawrence is asserting that her party came into power to engender changes then, the Broomes incident will not even figure in the critique of power that the coalition government is intoxicated with.
Let’s examine this rejection of change and juxtapose it with the silly, little private incident between a minister and two security guards. Evidence of lack of changes, changes that the population yearned for, puts Minister Lawrence in a maze. I would like to see her find the exit.
Where do we start? The APNU manifesto promised changes in the marijuana law. When two lawyers birthed a Bill to amend the law to allow for the removal of mandatory prison sentences, the reaction of the President was that Guyana must be careful in adopting what other countries do. The Attorney-General went in the direction of the absurd and hinted at a referendum to amend the law.
Both the AFC and APNU promised reduction in VAT. Where is the change? VAT was reduced by a mere two percent and then a hypocritical mask was donned by Minister Lawrence’s Government – some items that didn’t carry VAT had it imposed. And look what Minister Lawrence ‘s government put VAT on – tuition fees for private secondary schools. A powerful fool in the APNU+AFC government had a dream, woke up on a Tuesday morning, ran into a Cabinet session and shouted, “eureka, eureka, only the rich in Guyana send their children to private schools, let us tax their school fees.” The Cabinet said; “right on maan” and VAT was stamped on private tuition fees.
Did the Guyanese people when they voted for change in May 2015 expected that animal carts would have a tax imposed on them? Did taxi drivers and working class public sector workers expect a policy that stipulated that vehicles must have brand new tyres and an imported vehicle cannot be more than 8 years old? Did the Guyanese people when they dreamed of changes in May 2015 anticipate that as soon as the APNU+AFC came into office they would give themselves a colossal salary increase?
In denouncing what Minister Broomes did, Minister Lawrence must take her point to its logical climax and detail the changes the population expected? Did we expect UG to become what it is after 2015, where money is spent on entertainment and travel rather on salary increases? Where are the changes teachers expected? In June 2018, three years after Minister Lawrence’s government came into office, teachers are threatening strike action?
Let’s do the comparative method in the context of change. When the PPP was in power, GPL didn’t come when called upon after contacted by callers reporting sparking wires. This columnist spent five hours last month trying to get GPL to go to a house in Cummings Lodge after the previous day, residents failed to get GPL to act. A fire of disastrous nature was threatening. Now we have seen a heart-breaking tragedy in Clifton, Berbice.
A poor woman’s house went up in flames because GPL did not respond to repeated requests about a sparking wire on a post. The fire engine came 30 minutes after the flames enveloped the house and it had no water. What does this catastrophe remind you of? An unchanging Guyana of course. Such miseries occurred when the PPP was in power. They are taking place long after the 2015 election results.
During the reign of the PPP, patients died because of medical incompetence. No doctor was ever sanctioned with decertification. Now comes the unbelievable news that from June 2017 to June 2018, there have been 119 neonatal deaths at the Georgetown Hospital. The French people say; “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

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