The Private Sector Commission under fire from the head

Apr 29, 2020 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

There is another war of sorts going on amidst our main al ones involving crippling disputes and our viral one (the main one) that tells us how woefully fragmented we are. It tells me more than I need to know, or to which I seek to be anywhere close. From my perspective, our issues are not of the intellectually stimulating, but simply of the psychically encumbering, the spiritually sickening. It is of how far that we have advanced downhill for one specious cause after another; I sense how tragically deep we are committed.
In my book, it is fine and healthy for the Private Sector Commission or any other body to be challenging by revealing where things have fallen short, where we have gone wrong, be it government, or opposition, or the other major planks in society, including that made up by its own constituents with criminal histories. I am all for pressing and calling out and exposing. As examples, I tender the Guyana Human Rights Association and Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc. These are both entities with which I sometimes disagree. But both have stated in unambiguous terms what is wrong, and where they stand relative to Elections 2020 Guyana.
They, and others, have stepped forward and voiced their strong objections to what should not be. I laud them. But they have not become so inextricably fastened to the controversies and the respective warring sides that they are indistinguishable from both. Or worse yet, that they have become committed messenger or part of the narrative of one or the other groups that has served each and every citizen of this country so ignominiously. Like I like to say, we can support as part of our civic obligation, but there is a limit. The clear confines dictated by character and conscience that must not be breached. I venture that this applies mostly in our dealings with and representations of Guyanese politicians. It can be a disturbing journey, a savaging trauma, with too many epiphanies that leave in the most disappointing places.
I will be so bold as to state that the Private Sector Commission, such as we know it, had lost its moorings, and with those any claim to the objectivity that flows from impartiality, no matter the degree of personal and internal convictions of the rightness of its positions and the compulsions of its obligations. As a quick aside, I think that the parts of the diplomatic core also allowed itself to be sucked too far into the raging vortex that is Guyanese politics, with dross hanging for their pains. Being the wise people that they are, they have retreated, at least publicly and verbally. But back to the PSC.
I recall that, not so long ago, the PSC had so mangled itself that it was widely accepted that there were two private sectors. It might be regarded as among the sharp birth pains of democracy, but it is also the tragedy of Guyana, where everything automatically assumes the irreversible partisan. And for those who thought that such division was bad enough, along came Elections 2020, when the skins were shed, and what I term the daggers were unsheathed in passionate fervors. Too much of the passions and too many of the unhelpful fervors. Whereas before its spokespeople neither hard nor saw nor knew of anything amiss, today there is everything that is wrong and for which they stand as oracles of truth. This is to the discredit of those who have their firm political beliefs and hard leanings, but are still able to manage to maintain that distance that does not merge them with any political masters.
Now there is this political inseparability that injures the intents and standing of what ought to be a powerful and just as strongly respected agency, like TIGI and others. Things and people became too unbalanced, so far gone as not to care, because so much has been invested, so much would be lost. I daresay that such is the space to be occupied by the diehards and fundamentalists in both the PPP and the PNC. There are enough of them who will sell this country down the drain so that their party can rise above the ashes of what is left. The madness resident in both groups is not needed nor called for (nor should be expected) in organizations, such as the Private Sector Commission, the leaders of our many religious denominations, our professional associations. None of their leaders should feel it necessary-indeed, mandatory-that he or she must take to the public to propagandize or carry the torch for this or that party. Then, the very underpinnings of what is stood for, what is calculated and projected, are due for the harshest of condemnations. Our civic planks and their people must not allow themselves to be converted or used and misused for cheap political purposes. The politicians have plenty of the sycophantic to fetch their oozing and incriminating baggage. Let them get their own people to carry their dirty water for them. They are available and willing. It is why I say: let them do the deeds.
I am all for supporting or opposing. I am also all for recognizing when lines have to be drawn in the sand, and which must never be crossed. Not for any group. Not for any leader. Not for any reward.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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