THE MINISTRIES ARE FAILING THE PEOPLE

Jun 11, 2023 Letters

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Dear Editor,

After fifty-seven years of Independence, all the ministries still present long, difficult, and arduous task to obtain simple documents in an independent Guyana. And both the PPP and PNC governments have done absolutely nothing to improve the process by reducing the time span because they do not care about the people, only their relatives and friends.  For instance, to replace a National ID card or obtain a Death Certificate or a Birth Certificate or a passport continue to take months because of the incompetence and massive clumsiness in all the departments. Not to mention that it takes more than three months for a first-time worker employed by the government to obtain his or her first salary. Is President Ali for real when he said that Guyana would become the next Dubai? Is he dreaming? If yes, then dream on Mr. President. The entire country is suffering from what I dubbed the ‘waiting disease’.

At the same time, road accidents are at an all-time high and traffic pileups are on all the major roadways thus causing thousands of loss man hours daily, which is affecting the GDP. Also, the country’s fire safety systems remain primitive, which begs the question: the Minister of Home Affairs who is from a different by-gone era is belligerent, arrogant, childish, and pig-headed, does not have a clue as to what to do to solve the problem. And while the Minister of Education is not to be blamed for the twenty young lives lost in the Mahdia Secondary Female School dorm inferno, it must be made clear that several school fires took place under her tenure: Mabaruma Secondary, Chase Academy, North Ruimveldt Secondary, St. George’s High, Church Christ Secondary and now the Mahdia dormitory. Even though she has no direct responsibility for maintaining safety standards, she should have the schools checked out skilled personnel on a regular basis and report any irregularities to the respective ministries in charge of school and fire safety.

It must also be made clear that the ministry responsible for the untimely death of those 20 children is Local Government, headed by an oddball who is the most incompetent, arrogant, rude, obscene, and vulgar member of the cabinet. There is no question that he must be forced to resign or fired by the President for dereliction of duties and be charged with Criminal negligent homicide. But it will not happen, because the immature and vindictive honcho and de facto president who speaks on the tiniest of issues and criticizes those with different opinions has remained silent because the minister in question is his friend and confidant. He has not only attacked Justice Kissoon’s decision against Exxon Mobile and the EPA, but he has also criticized and threatened the Judge by saying that judges do not have the right to rule against regulatory agencies. The truth is when it comes to the laws governing the country, the honcho and de facto president is a dunce.

Another government failure is the Ministry of Public Works. Comprised of a senior and junior minister, the Ministry of Public Works is corrupt, highly inefficient and lacks proper judgement. Most of the infrastructure contracts are awarded to relatives and friends of the PPP government and almost all contracts do not finish on the allotted scheduled time. For example, repairs and construction at the airport is in its twelfth year and is costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in over-run costs.

Turning to the Ministry of Housing which also has two ministers has been sharing hundreds of house lots, but the waiting period for a house lot continues to exceed 5 years in a country with 83,000 square miles and with less than 800,000 people. Bangladesh, on the other hand has 170 million people living on less than 58,000 square miles and the waiting period for a house lot is less than one year. The two Ministers of Housing could learn a lot if they consulted the housing minister in that country. These ministers have never operated or managed a cake shop; therefore, their portfolios could be overwhelming for their pitiful brains. A comedy of errors in this and the previous government traverse the Land of Many Waters where water is imported, and the high cost of living has eaten away at the wages of the poor and the working class.

Almost all the ministries in the country are backward and reactive and are failing the citizens. Building roads, bridges and stadiums and bribing voters with cash grants to vote for the PPP will not work. It shows that the government headed by the honcho and de facto president is desperate, corrupt, and rotten to the core. I trust that the people of Guyana are smarter that this deceitful and wicked government. They should not allow the government to bribe them to vote for the PPP. It is the taxpayers’ money that the government is using and not the PPP, therefore, I am urging the voters to take all the money they could get from the PPP and stay at home or vote against this corrupt, arrogant, and uncaring government on June 12. The people ought to know and understand that the Ministers of the PPP only come to the voters at election time. Do not allow them to use and abuse you because after the election, they will not visit you again until the next election.

Personally, I think President Ali could do a better job if he sidelined or get rid of the honcho and de facto president who will cause him to lose the next election because despite the poor performance of Granger’s inept coalition government, the PPP only won the election in 2020 by 6,000 votes and one seat. Now that the honcho and de facto president has returned to his old vindictive, spiteful, nasty, and evil ways, there exist the possibility President Ali could become another Donald Ramotar in 2025. He should employ highly skilled and professional personnel instead of those anointed, incompetent, and corrupt PPP officials to steer the country in the right direction. The honcho and de facto president is an old and washed-out politician who should be heading to the pasture.

Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine

Real Estate Builder, New York

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• Chase Academy, Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine, Mabaruma Secondary, Mahdia Secondary, North Ruimveldt Secondary, St. George’s High

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