These are the ironies African Guyanese must internalise

Jul 26, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Last week the opposition introduced a Motion for the government to pay public servants one month after they receive their letter of appointment, instead of having to wait for three months. In what has to be a terrible irony for African Guyanese, the Motion was introduced by the APNU+AFC parliamentarian who was the Minister of the Public Service, Tabita Sarabo-Halley.

There are two unbelievable dimensions to this act of the opposition. One is why when she was the minister she did not do it? Secondly, why the APNU+AFC government itself didn’t do it in the five years it held power? This is infantile politics and incompetent strategising.

This Motion should never have been pursued for two reasons. It gives the PPP government an opportunity to pulverise the opposition. Secondly, it lays bare before the eyes of the African Guyanese who support the PNC that their leadership is an ineffective outfit.

What the ruling party did with the motion was to embarrass the opposition. The present Minister of the Public Service, Ms. Sonia Parag simply turned to Sarabo-Halley and asked: “Why didn’t you do it when you were the minister?” Ms. Sarabo-Halley could not answer and cannot.

The spin off from this humiliation is that it reinforces the belief in African Guyanese since the APNU+AFC lost the March 2020 election that their leadership is mediocre and shows no vision. But there is a third dimension to this Motion which was in fact a reincarnation of an identical performance of APNU last year. Both actions have been acts of self-destruction.

Sheron Duncan on behalf of APNU+AFC introduced an amendment in the House to change some of the draconian aspects of the anti-marijuana law. The ruling party used its majority to defeat it. Commonsense was at work on the part of the ruling party. When you were in power, you did not amend the law. Now you are out of office, you seek to amend it and it is amended through the support of the government benches.

You then automatically widen your support base by going to thousands of youths who normally smoke a joint and tell them that you fought for their right to legally smoke a joint. The government MPs are either jackasses or mentally challenged people to vote for such an opposition Bill. The reaction is commonsensically grounded. When you were in power, you didn’t do it, why must we give you the opportunity to shout from the roof top that you made it legal to smoke a joint?

We come now to the three months pay situation. It is the identical situation. The government benches voted for the requirement to pay one month after the beginning of work and you go onto the roof top and shout to public servants that you made it possible. Either the ruling party legislators are jackasses or mentally challenged. You did not do it when you were in power but you want us to do it for you so you can ingratiate yourself with public servants.

But there is a fourth dimension to the Motion. When Duncan introduced his amendment, APNU offered African youths not even a half-baked apology for why the original Bill put on the Order Paper in 2016 never saw debate in the House thus never became reality. You owe your supporters such an apology.

It is the identical situation with Ms. Sarabo-Halley. All it took was a public statement offering an explanation as to why in her capacity as Public Service Minister she did not pursue the one month salary path and offer an apology. Once the PNC continues with this arid and jejune politics, self-destructive impulses will multiply and the PNC is going to face electoral devastation in 2025 if it participates in the election.

The PNC lost six seats in the 2006 elections because African Guyanese were disillusioned with its mediocrity. The PNC brought in the WPA and sought a close alliance with the AFC in 2011 and regained those seats. It will lose more than six seats in 2025 for two fundamental reasons.

One is African Guyanese know that the thinking of the PNC is that it has a complete hold on them and thus does not have to strategise to be an effective party. Secondly, the new generation of African Guyanese knows that the PNC frustrated them with many of the things it did not do when it was in power and wants to use them for narrow purposes.

There will be more actions like the ones we saw from Duncan and Sarabo-Halley and they all will be self-destructive. The PPP does not have to weaken the PNC, the PNC is doing that itself.

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

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