My vote for Granger depends on his action on UG

Jan 13, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I didn’t plan to vote for the PNC or the PPP in the forthcoming election. I don’t think I can vote for Ralph Ramkarran. More on that later. The pledge I made to myself was to vote for the Amerindian party. But David Granger is a politically attractive prospect. What Granger did in his meeting with Jagdeo over the no-confidence motion was an act of political transformative dynamism.
I do not support the sociological and economic directions Desmond Hoyte went into. But in the context of post-colonial political savagery, Desmond Hoyte became a political transformer. Hoyte departed from the power psychosis of the post-colonial world by agreeing to the opening-up of political space in which he himself could be displaced. At the existential level, he could have followed post-colonial patterns and chosen not to administer free and fair elections.
With the exception of David Granger, this column is openly saying in pellucid language, I trust no one in the APNU constituents, including the WPA, to accept defeat with the no-confidence motion and in the next general election. I see the AFC in identical fashion. Put another way, I believe with the exception of David Granger, the rest of the leadership in power will not concede defeat in the next general poll. Without Granger, there may be a rigged national election with the input of the power-drunk cabal we presently have.
This is a dangerous situation facing Guyana and we would need all the courage of Granger to save Guyana. Mr. Granger should be the presidential candidate for APNU. I may be inclined to vote for him. But I have a strong condition attached. UG has deteriorated terribly and is in more troubled times than when the PPP ruled.
What is taking place at UG is beyond belief. I could forward Mr. Granger with emails that describe the descent into financial insanity and administrative incestuous behaviour that no previous government – under Burnham, Hoyte, Cheddi and Janet Jagan, Jagdeo or Ramotar – would ever, I repeat, ever have tolerated.
These emails are from people that Mr. Granger and his PNC colleagues know very well, some of whom supported Mr. Granger at the 2015 poll. I was told by some UG academics that there’s a lecturer who is an unofficial advisor to the President. Some of the emails come from him. He should write as often on UG as he does on oil and the no-confidence motion.
At a time when the Finance Minister asserted there was no fiscal space to give public servants a bonus, when teachers are being denied their requested pay hike, when money is not there to clean up Georgetown, when the Georgetown Hospital is without many necessities, hundreds of millions of dollars at UG are being wasted on self-aggrandizement, extraordinary spending on personalized trips and frequent entertainment as if UG is one of the world’s richest Ivy league schools. High officials are paying themselves salary hikes as if UG is overflowing with funds.
I taught at UG for 26 years and no one could get professorship, absolutely no one, without a long list of publications which must include two books. Professorships are being shared out at UG. In my time at UG, all academic appointments had to come through the Appointments Committee. The situation exists at the moment where there are perverted breaches of these regulations that are reducing UG to a tenth rate high school.
I cannot believe the people who are describing these depravities to me could have become so weak and sheepish in just three years. These are people I fought with. These are people who fought for me when the PPP government victimized me. These are people who struggled to keep UG afloat. Now they are treated like footnotes, while an artificial aristocracy wastes UG’s scarce funds in the most lascivious manner.
I am not asking the President to believe the contents of this column. Just for him to read the emails and see who authored them, and then select a small national committee to investigate what is going on at UG. Mr. Granger owes this to his alma mater, UG and the country.
I cannot see how I can vote for David Granger if he cannot at least make an honest attempt to understand the nihilism that is overtaking UG. This committee needs to examine expenditure items and take a meticulous look at how much money has been spent on what items.
I will not vote for Granger if my request here is ignored, because I feel it is a patriotic request. Should another party come to power, then UG administration needs to be overhauled.

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