Minister Bharrat

Nov 01, 2024 Editorial, News

…Editorial

Kaieteur News- Minister of Natural Resources, Minister Vickram Bharrat recently found his voice to manifest some fire at a recent Local Content Forum. The zeal of a fundamentalist was evident in his words, the sparkle present. It was not so much what he shared on behalf of his PPPC Government that may have inspired his audience. It is what both he and his government have chosen to ignore rather carelessly, rather callously.

“Guyana is probably now in its stage where I like to say it is in the most exciting period in the history of our country where the time is right now to invest, when… we are expanding existing sectors now is the time to invest in Guyana.” Minister Bharrat is right, but up to a point only. It is an exciting period in Guyana, but the minister knows very well that it is mainly for those who formed part of his audience.

The exciting times lived by close comrades and the other cabals that are part of the PPPC Government circle has definitely happened with both explained and unexplained wealth making up their rise to great economic heights. They are the few and the favored in a population of somewhere between 750,000 and 800,000, at the last count. The few are the small number of Guyanese falling under the tent of close private sector entities, a battalion of public works contractors, cooperative senior public servants, and trusted PPPC loyalists. They know about excitement, because they live it.

What Minister Bharrat and his Government ignore, and give short thrift to, are those hundreds of thousands of Guyanese who are hanging on by their fingernails. Those losing their grip inch by inch daily. Rather than living in an exciting time, these Guyanese who go without, manage by a thread, are living with what is disappointing.

In the richest country in the world, and despite being statistically described as the richest individually, all that most of them know is grinding poverty. In this rich country there is a small intimate group of haves, knowing what it is to live in “the most exciting period” in Guyana’s history. Then there are the urban areas and villages, and all those remote communities littered with the have nots. The only time that there is some short-lived and questionable excitement for them is during that of elections. Poor Guyanese were just remembered with a $100,000 cash grant gift.

It must be because elections is around the corner, so the wily PPPC Government leadership now runs forward to grease the palms of the have nots, so that they will remember and know who to support at the ballot box. Otherwise, the most exciting period about which Minister Bharrat found his tongue to shout about at the Marriott Hotel is so foreign to the mass of Guyanese, as to be on another planet. This is how government leadership runs off its mouth, shoots itself in the foot. On each occasion that PPPC Government leaders speak, their words come right back and expose the one-sided nature of their visions, programs, and practices. A belated cash grant of $100,000 is only temporary and paltry excitement for Guyanese, for soon it would be gone. Unlike the long-term excitement of government insiders, the excitement of Guyanese in the have nots bracket will be over before they know it.

Minister Bharrat also said something else, which unwittingly plastered egg all over his face and that of leaders in his government. “Another 10 years from now might be too late, it might be too late,” he cautioned. Though said to the Local Content gathering relative to investing, the minister may not know how right he is, otherwise. For there are tens of thousands of Guyanese who could be dead before the next ten years are over. Pensioners are a prime constituency, for they form 10% of Guyana’s known population, and for many of them it would be too late. There would be no sharing for, no knowing by, them in this “the most exciting period” locally. This is how the PPPC Government condemns itself through callousness, the hollowness of its propaganda, the ugliness of its postures. Guyana’s poor live with deep disappointment, not rich excitement.

(Minister Bharrat)

Minister of Natural Resources, Poor Guyanese, PPPC Government, rich excitement, Vickram Bharrat

Latest News