A Consensus Candidate: The harbinger of a Good Life for Guyanese – towards a National Government

Jul 30, 2019 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

The selection of Justice Claudette Singh as GECOM Chairwoman is an exceptionally good development for all Guyanese. The Government, Opposition and Civil Society should be proud of this achievement. But we should go further and ask our leaders to take the ultimate step towards unity by forming a national government to bridge the political and cultural divide.
This is a moral imperative to save the nation from its enemies both within and on our borders. Those enemies are not only the nation states that want to seize our territory, they are also those who want to take our anticipated natural resources wealth, including our petroleum wealth. The latter are the ones we need to carefully manage and that can only be accomplished with Guyanese united at home and in the diaspora.
Guyanese are a rich people swimming in poverty… the scorn of ourselves, the political leverage, cultural hatred and all of the sins of humanity. The question is – can we accomplish a better life to bequeath to our children and grandchildren? Yes, we can. Justice Singh’s appointment is the light to illuminate the way forward. Now we must boldly take strategic actions to accomplish our motto; One People, One Nation, One Destiny.
Guyana needs a national Government. The Government and the Opposition need to go back to negotiations with the aim of creating a national government. This is worthy of our heritage. The Proposed Modality can be as follows:
To achieve a national unity Government, President Granger should remain in office for a second term. The Opposition will have the Prime Minister position. This means that both President Granger and former President Jagdeo will have had two terms each. Both leaders must then ride off into the sunset of Guyanese politics after this new term. Before they leave they must select six candidates for President and Prime Minister. These candidates should be groomed for the next generation of leadership and should hold appointments and policy portfolios within the Office of the President and Prime Minister. The nuance can be worked out, including the need to rotate the Presidency.
As in the current milieu, everyone will be keeping their eyes on the wealth of the nation and looking at which party gets what portfolio. The President must still be responsible for the sovereignty of the nation, Defence, Foreign Affairs and the protection and wellbeing of Guyanese. His portfolio should include oil and natural resources, finance, infrastructure development, climate change and the environment.
The Prime Minister should be given his own portfolio which should include economic development, business and entrepreneurship, agriculture, energy and renewable energy development and generation, electrification development and internal security.
The Cabinet and Ministerial portfolios can be divided equally or based on proportional representation between the main parties candidates, with deputies coming from the opposite party. Both the President and Prime Minister should be designated Cabinet co-chairmen and their decisions should be based mainly on consensus.
The economic disparities between cultural groups must be addressed immediately in the areas of land, business opportunities and the creation of wealth. Affirmative action must be implemented immediately.
Generally, all Guyanese must be given access to the natural resource wealth in some form to eradicate poverty, create a safety net, and to generally build generational wealth. This should be an additional responsibility of the Ethnic Relations Commission. This Commission must also monitor the humility and civility of the nation discourse for the various cultures. In addition, the Ethnic Relations Commission must now ensure economic parity of the cultural groups, ethnic discrimination is eliminated in political and socio-economic spheres, and also monitor and evaluate milestones related to national unity.
Extremely competitive politics leads to conflict in Guyana. Recent events show that the Guyanese politician cannot manage chaos. Sun Tzu, the Chinese military philosopher said, “it is better to take a country whole and intact” than to wage war, thus Elections should be held to win the hearts and minds of Guyanese.
Each party should compete to win seats in the Parliament and for the allocation of Cabinet portfolio positions. While we will have many competing parties, their performance at the polls in our proportional representative system will give them a voice and a vote at the national and regional levels.
Regionally, local democracy must prevail with people voting their conscience for their regional government. Decentralization from the national government should be fully implemented. The Parliament can still be based on the party list, but decision and votes will be based on parliamentarians conscience for Cabinet’s Budget Bill and Members’ Bills.
The Judiciary must remain independent. Guyana must have an Attorney General who will be responsible for the rule of law and protection of Guyanese and their national patrimony. We need a Solicitor General to represent the Government
The Integrity Commission should have the task of fighting corruption within the public and private sectors. Public and Private officials who fail to meet the integrity standards should be banned from doing business with the Government for ten years. Similarly, private businesses which collaborate with corrupted private business should also be banned for doing business with the Government.
Coordination and information sharing between the Attorney General, the Judiciary, Special Organised Crime Unit, State Asset Recovery Agency, Transparency Institute of Guyana and the Integrity Commission must cooperate and collaborate to protect the national wealth. Heading such coordination bodies should be the role of a minor party contesting the election. This group should be like Horatius at the Bridge
A national Government Commission should be established to monitor, evaluate and propose goals and objectives for national unity and the national Government. This commission should be made up of senior retired statesmen and women, including past Presidents, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers, with observer status given to the Ethnic Relations Commission, the Integrity Commission, Private Sector Commission, Transparency Institute and other ethnic entrepreneurs’ groups such as the African Business Roundtable.
This Commission must have subpoena power to bring people before them to report on progress towards national unity and the protection of the national wealth and the well-being of our citizens.
The role of GECOM should be changed to become the body which determines who is a Guyanese citizen. They need to create a virtual citizen, i.e. a digital Avatar, a representational digital image, for every natural citizen, and have the responsibility to maintain an accurate database of Guyanese citizens.
This is an “Accord for National Government and Good Governance in Guyana”. Burnham and Jagan started this process with the intent to implement it in 1985. We have lost one generation of Guyanese to the “Ghetto Culture”. We cannot afford to lose another. We cannot let this objective become as fleeting as the clouds. It is our national imperative. With first oil and the International Court of Justice decision on the border dispute about to become a reality, let us as Guyanese stand up in unity to show the world we are one people, one nation with one destiny.
Finally, the election ballot must have the question to evaluate the support of Guyanese for a national Government. Let the show begin. Messrs. President and Prime Minister, the ball is in your court; give Guyanese a future. Bet on us and we will win. Have faith and trust in us. We have great expectations.
Regards,
Colin Westmoreland
Concerned Guyanese

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