Confounded confusion

Feb 02, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Kaieteur News – Both the PPP/C and the APNU, when in Opposition, had said that they will stand with the government in defence of the country’s territorial integrity. It was therefore not surprising that following the seizure and detention of two Guyanese fishing vessels by the Venezuelan navy, the Minister of Foreign Affairs met with his counterpart from the Opposition to brief her on the efforts which were being made to secure the release of the crews of the vessels and to alert the international community to the violation of Guyana’s marine territory.
Arising out of that meeting, it was reported that the opposition counterpart “underscored the need for the administration to embark on a public education campaign so that every Guyanese man, woman and child can understand and properly articulate Guyana’s position as it relates to Venezuela’s preposterous claims.”
This suggestion was all that the government needed to hand out a public education contract. There will be no demands for this public education contract to be subject to competitive bidding. Most likely, it will be treated as matter of national urgency and the government will hand out a multi-million dollar contract to ensure that every man, woman and child can shout “not a blade of grass”.
This is confounded nonsense. Guyanese need no public education programme to enlighten them that the Essequibo belongs to Guyana and that the 1899 Arbitral Award represented a full, final and definitive settlement of the territorial issue between Guyana and Venezuela.
Not a child is unaware of Dave Martins hits, ‘Not a Blade of Grass’. Whenever this song is played in public, Guyanese, young and old, sing lustily. Guyanese are not divided on this question. All that is needed is for Dave Martins’ song to be played on the radio a few times each day.
There was therefore absolutely no need for any credence to be given to this suggestion by the Opposition representative for a public education programme. And even if there was a need to enlighten members of the public about the territorial issue, this could have easily been done by the state-owned National Communications Network (NCN).
Why hire a private firm when the state-owned media machinery is at the disposal of the government? Why waste valuable resources, which can be better deployed to curb the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Almost 11 months after the outbreak of the coronavirus in Guyana, the Ministry of Health, is now reporting that a study is being commissioned as to the local trends of the pandemic. Can you believe this nonsense?
What was the basis upon which the Ministry of Health and the COVID-19 Task Force were making assessments and recommendations? Was it gathering detailed statistics on the incidence of the disease and on the resulting deaths, other than the threadbare daily COVID-19 bulletin? Was the Ministry of Health not monitoring the trends?
Can it provide a regional breakdown of the deaths? Can it provide an ethnic breakdown of the persons who died? Can it disaggregate the total tests per region? Are these indicators not fundamental to making the epidemiological assessment, which is required to inform the national and regional strategies?
To date, the media has failed to ask the Minister of Health to indicate the names of the epidemiologists who are advising him on the matter and what do their models suggest? How can the public have confidence in the government’s handling of the pandemic when it has been no more transparent than the APNU+AFC was?
When the government indicated that 20,000 antigen tests were being ordered, this column suggested that random testing be done, as was the case in New York during the early months of the pandemic. This random testing would have allowed for a determination as to the possible national incidence of the disease. It would have allowed the Ministry to project the percentage of the population who were infected or had been infected.
It is surprising to now learn that a trend study will be undertaken in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization and the Harvard University. Why do we need these institutions to help us do a study of COVID- 19 trends?
This should have been an ongoing exercise undertaken by the personnel within the Ministry of Health but instead of hiring competent persons who can do these tests, what we have throughout the government are all manner of political appointees.
The media learnt on last Sunday at the Annual Media Brunch that within the Office of the Presidency are a Press Secretary and a Deputy Press Secretary. We might soon have a Secretary of State and Chief of Staff of the Presidency.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---