State boards selections

Sep 10, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

As I read of state board and some other appointments, I know there may be more waiting for their names to be called. I don’t think they will be disappointed, and I bid them well, though I wished that they were people of some detectable honour, of some residual dignity, of some iota of class. Here is how I view these developments.
First, I must be clear on something, at the risk of repeating myself. There is no interest on my part to engage in public service in this country anymore. If called upon to serve by any group, I will decline respectfully. That is where I stand, and my word stated. My public service is now in other private areas, of which this practice is but one part.
Second, I think that as a political calculation and strategy, the PPP government has done well with how it approached these matters of appointments of any kind. They are diverse, and gender neutral, age conscious, and evidence smart political thinking. Neutralize or dilute competition. Keep friends close, hold enemies closer. Encircle them. I will not speak anything today about payback, or who sold out when. All I say is that the PPP has done remarkably well. Good politics, it is.
Third, as for some called, I am sorry that I cannot tender the same on their behalf, because they stand exposed as unabashed hypocrites and the worst of self-serving opportunists. They are not rank and file members of the parties they formed. Rather, they are mainly executives of those smaller parties that had hoped to sweep Guyana off its tangled feet. I am glad that they failed; perhaps, Guyanese wiser than me saw through them. I confess that I didn’t, because I gave them some benefit of the doubt, despite large mistrusts.
Because here they are now with palm outstretched for handouts (perhaps part of the grand bargain during the many elections impasses) through their payout. A man’s principles or a woman’s dignity should not come so cheap. I believe this because they gave their word solemnly and honourably. And where I come from (not America), a man’s word is his unbreakable bond. What was the word? They will not coalesce or join with the dastardly PNC or wicked PPP. But now just did. If that is not identifying with and joining with and standing with the PPP, then we have nothing left. It is about what definition of coalescing and joining men and women really had when they swore so before in public before supporters, before gullible Guyanese voters.
Fourth, and along the same lines, I read of the small parties now laying claim to the position of Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly on an ongoing basis. Surely, they are not serious, these once newcomers and challengers now already seasoned campaigners and enrichers in the dark arts of Guyanese politics. They did so poorly at the polls that I can’t even remember how much they gathered altogether. What a slick set of smart (in the worst meaning of the word) people. They should not even be in parliament, for crying out loud, but there they were staking out territory and sheltering under the umbrella of the once (so it was said) detestable PPP. What I behold presently are filaments in clouds of conspiracy and characters coarse in substance and driven by personal visions. No wonder our politics is so rotten through and through with what is tawdry and of the most pungent odor.
I think that the least that their supporters are owed is for them to have stood their ground and hold true to their word given. But in local politics, there is no such thing, which is why there is so much lining up, waiting, collecting, and moving up in the world. They did not have to sell themselves. And that is my bottom line. In closing, there is little with which I find to agree on with the PNC, but I concur with Mr. Harmon that the rationale/excuse of the PPP to exclude it from state boards is ‘ludicrous.’ By the way, I have not gone anywhere, but to my spiritual roots.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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