Jagdeo down memory lane

Feb 15, 2024 Editorial

Editorial…

Kaieteur News – The question was as simple as simple can be. Can Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo live on $85,000 a month. Instead of a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ or ‘might be manageable,’ the Vice President engaged in his practice of taking Guyanese all over the place. Jagdeo went round and round like Jules Vernes in Around the World in Eighty Days, except that he took a little more than 80 minutes altogether.

He went back to the decade of the 1970s, as though he is some time traveler, and how the government of the day splurged. Being keen the political animal that he is, he dragged in foes competing for power, the APNU. This was the answer that Bharrat Jagdeo gave to the $85,000 question. “Now whether I can live on $85,000. I don’t have much expenses, you are right, I don’t have much expenses myself. Coming to the $85,000, let’s pay everyone half a million dollars if that’s the living wage. Take every cent that we have in the budget because that’s the kind of planning that will come out of APNU, and bankrupt the country so that three generations later we are still struggling from it, their debt,”

The first thing that is apparent is that Jagdeo smoothly evaded giving a straight answer. His response solidifies the growing impression among Guyanese that he has become a great escape artist. He is a man on a trapeze swinging from north to south, and touching nothing but air in between the points he chooses. If Vice President Jagdeo has difficulty answering whether he can live on $85,000 monthly, then what is to be expected of ordinary Guyanese. What is their reality from being forced to live on $85,000 monthly, depending on where they are on the economic ladder? What do their facts and those of Jagdeo say, what do they confirm?

It can be confidently said that ordinary Guyanese do not have the luxury of allowances, not one, to help them cushion the demands made on them in a cost-of-living environment that is of traumatic proportions. Ordinary Guyanese would be the working class of Guyana: public servants, minimum wage workers, porters, and pensioners, among others, have no monthly allowances to count on, but Jagdeo does. Jagdeo enjoys such a sweet stream of six-figure monthly allowances that he had no reason to touch or look at his pay for years. Contrast this to the reality of Guyanese whose pittance for pay is gone in a matter of days, and with the rest of the month still hanging over their heads.

Many regular citizens have families, meaning children, a household of mouths to feed, clothe, and manage. Bharrat Jagdeo has himself, and people to cater to his every need. His own words shine a blinding light on the circumstances enjoyed by the likes of Jagdeo, ministers, top insiders, and well-paid party hacks and pawns: “I don’t have much expenses, you are right. I don’t have much expenses myself.” Even in that sparse answer, it could be said that Jagdeo skimmed over the whole truth because he probably doesn’t have any expenses at all. Not a dime, not a dollar, is what could be closer to Jagdeo’s situation. How many Guyanese can say this? Which Guyanese worker grappling with paltry wages (and zero allowances) is in a position to say something like that, and it is really so? Not many, perhaps not any, is what we believe. That said, Jagdeo would not be Jagdeo, if he did not convert the $85,000 question to display his cunning by bringing in his political opponents into his response. He went down the memory lane of the 1970s, would live in it, if allowed his way. The then government was reckless and wasteful, which it undoubtedly was. From there, he somehow jumped to “let’s pay everyone a half a million dollars…”. This is part of the shiftiness of Jagdeo that now features when he is cornered. Because he fears confronting ExxonMobil, he drives fear into Guyanese with his drifts and dodges, and the old bogey of the PNC, now APNU+AFC. One of these days, he might give a straight answer on some question. We are not holding our breath.

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APNU+AFC, Bharrat Jagdeo, ExxonMobil, Ministers, the APNU, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo

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