Kaieteur News editorial should to be used as the propaganda mouthpiece

Jan 30, 2019 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Judging from the content written in the Kaieteur News editorial of January 28, it appears that both Adam Harris, its Editor-in-Chief, and its publisher, Glenn Lall, were out of the country when this was published.
This editorial, I’m convinced, was written by a “guest” who is not associated with the Kaieteur News, but someone who is highly political, unethical, and has no reservation spewing lies and misinformation in the nation’s most popular newspapers.
Kaieteur News should not allow its editorial to be used as the propaganda mouthpiece of the PNC/APNU+AFC. Leave the gutter journalism for the discredited Guyana Chronicle.
The editorial “Practising Deceptive Politics”, unleashed a venomous attack on the People’s Progressive Party that can only be matched by the likes of Freddie Kissoon and Mark Benschop. The author himself is guilty of practising deceptive politics.
This missive is laced with so many inaccuracies that I don’t have the space here to respond to this writer, whoever he is. Since he quoted Abraham Lincoln, here is another quote from Mark Twain he should be aware of, “Better to keep your mouth shut and appear foolish than to open it and remove all doubt.”
The unsupported accusations against the PPP/C will not change the vote on December 21. As far as I recall, the nation was presented with evidence of mismanagement, underperformance, ineptitude, the shameless misuse of state resources and corruption under the APNU+AFC government that he supports.
In fact, “there is undeniable evidence” that Attorney General Basil Williams and others at Congress Place “have become fixated on rulership for their own interest and not those of the people. In fact, they have been known not to put the country and the citizenry first.”
Nagamootoo first called a press conference on the night of December 21 and admitted the government fell. The next day, Granger held a press conference and said the same thing. Now he has Basil Williams doing all his dirty work, taking all the heat as the most incompetent Attorney General that he is.
But Williams could not have done this on his own. The deliberate tactics that are being employed now in the courts and at GECOM to delay the inevitable, must have been sanctioned by David Granger. He’s not an innocent bystander here; he is cunning, deceptive and dangerous.
He may be the President, but Granger is no Mr. Nice Guy. He refused to resign and call elections as mandated by our constitution. How honest can he be? Let us not fool ourselves, Granger is planning every move like a grandmaster in a game of chess, but his opponent is no pushover.
The Kaieteur News “editor” seems to have a problem with Bharrat Jagdeo’s style of leadership. But let me remind him that it was the PPP/C and Bharrat Jagdeo’s dynamic leadership that rebuilt the Guyana economy from bankruptcy.
Whether he likes it or not, Bharrat Jagdeo will remain the Party’s General Secretary to ensure a PPP/C victory at the polls when elections are finally called, and will play an active role in the next government to ensure our manifesto promises are delivered to the people.
The irony is that almost four years into the APNU+AFC Administration, the People’s Progressive Party is still being blamed for everything that goes wrong in Guyana.
During the run-up to the 2015 general and regional elections, Guyanese were asked to vote for the Coalition because they will fix everything that was wrong with the country. The APNU+AFC campaigned on getting rid of corruption, restoring accountability and transparency.
They promised to improve the economy and to create jobs for our young people. They also promised to reduce crime and to get rid of the drug trade. But most importantly, they promised every Guyanese the “good life”. They have failed miserably.
In his address to the National Assembly over two years ago, President Granger said his government “entered a depressing financial landscape in May 2015… Economic mismanagement was accompanied by huge debts for unpaid international obligations and court judgments.”
He added that the absence of a policy to provide employment opportunities for youth and to reduce extreme poverty and the failure to energise the manufacturing sector helped to weaken the economy (Guyana Times, October 14, 2016).
But compared to the bankrupt economy the PPP inherited from the PNC in 1992, the APNU+AFC inherited over US$670 million (G$134 Billion) in Foreign Exchange Reserves from the PPP/C in May of 2015 (source: the GlobalEconomy.com).
This amount is in addition to the approximately $150 billion this Granger inherited in recurring revenues and the $35 Billion from semi-autonomous agencies. In addition, Granger inherited an economy with the lowest debt payment in the entire Caribbean with only 4% as compared to 153% of revenue that went to service foreign debt in 1992.
The APNU+AFC inherited an economy that was growing on an average of 4.5% for the preceding eight years.
Granger was being less than truthful in his address when he claimed to have inherited a “depressing financial landscape”. For in fact, the APNU+AFC inherited a buoyant economy; good international reserves; a big revenue base; small debt-servicing; and an inflow of foreign direct investments of about US$400 million a year with ExxonMobil spending hundreds of millions already; and from the two new gold mines operating in large scale production.
The APNU+AFC Coalition is yet to attract a single foreign investor.
Let me make this pellucid to all the Jagdeo haters, Bharrat Jagdeo is not going anywhere. He’s more loved throughout Guyana than Granger and his entire Cabinet put together. In fact, Granger would have loved to have a leader as popular as Jagdeo on his team.

HARRY GILL
PPP/C Member of Parliament

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