President Ali rolling over, rolling along

Apr 13, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – President Irfaan Ali considers himself a man who gets things done, a leader one who brooks no nonsense. Some say he is a visionary, a man on the move. The position that we at this paper take is in what direction, up or down, or in circles? We go deeper and say that he is a man groping around for solutions without even knowing what the problem is.

The GPL is a source of continuing curses from Guyanese. Blackouts have raged across different parts of Guyana recently with increasing frequency. The electricity goes off, then it comes back, only to go down again within a matter of minutes. True to traditional practice, President Ali looked around for an easy, saleable scapegoat, and quickly found one in the APNU+AFC Coalition Government of 2015-2020. He spoke of what was inherited, and the dilapidated state in which the GPL was when the PPPC Government returned to power in August 2020. The president is wrong, and he knows it, for there was a notable decline in the number of blackouts and other outages during the Coalition’s management of it. We at this publication know that for a fact, for the simple reason that the electricity interruptions and the related disruptions were lesser. There is no refuting that record, and President knows that, but pretends not to, and plays the usual politics at which he gets more seasoned and slicker on his feet.

Few of the president’s attitudes and actions relative to the GPL have provided relief from incessant blackouts to the energy starved population of Guyana. The president may be angered to be reminded about this, but it was his PPPC Government that brought back an executive whose performance was rated as “below expectations” by his own people. “Below expectations” means that he could not deliver, and in a problem prone organization like the GPL, only the best person available could make a difference. Jamaican CEO, Albert Gordon worked small wonders with what he had and produced the one standard that means the most to the Guyanese public: a noticeably smaller number of blackouts. President Ali had no use for either the man or his work, and how much he could have probably delivered at the GPL, so down and out he went. There is a strong resemblance to the fate that was meted out to Dr. Vincent Adams of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who was also shown the door. Like the GPL, Guyanese should take a deep breath and check where the PPPC Government reengineered EPA is today. When it is needed to be at its best, the EPA is a national entity that would make the comedy circuit in a real country.

But President Ali, is not a man who responds to facts and circumstances complacently, brushes those nuisance reminders, and is said to have read the “riot act” to the GPL Board of Directors and its management team. Sad to say, President Ali is more bark than bite, a man given to bluff and whoof. While he takes joy in reading riot acts with his sternest face here and there, the mob still runs madly ahead. In other words, the electricity woes of Guyanese still have to be experienced. We don’t know who is advising the president, or the source of some of his ideas, and what he has adopted as his leadership style. But many of the things that he puts his hands on, the big national issues are fast becoming too identical to what his champion, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, represents. Jagdeo has failed serially, and President Ali runs that same risk, should he keep rolling along the wrong roads chosen.

The performance of the GPL today is laid on the Coalition, as are most things. Guyanese are not biting. For the Ali board at the GPL has lost credibility, and his executive management team has its holes. All the generators in the world will not make the difference they should for Guyanese, when senior positions are filled based on politics rather than on proven track records. The GPL is dragging Guyanese down with recurrent blackouts. The PPPC Government, led by Irfaan Ali, has dragged them to this state.

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Editorial, Guyana, nonsense, President Irfaan Ali, problem

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