Why is APNU objecting now to TOR which it helped craft?

Dear Editor,

After a careful assessment of the just completed Terms of Reference (TOR) crafted by Joseph Harmon on behalf of APNU, and Roger Luncheon on behalf of the PPP, we found many deficiencies, and have opined in a letter to KN that the TOR was a grave injustice to the people of Linden.

So today we ask what this furor originating from Congress Place on the TOR is all about. Do these PNC members have any modicum of decency to sit at a head table and concoct a TOR with the PPP and two months later decide to tell the people of Linden and by extension the nation that they are displeased with the TOR that they themselves crafted with their own hands?  This is the same old PNC that has been repackaged and re-imposed on the people disguised as APNU. Instead of consulting with the AFC and the Linden representatives, Sharma Solomon and Vanessa Kissoon, they collaborated with the government to shut out everyone else from a complex process, and in the end delivered to the people of Linden a TOR that best serves the vested interests of the PPP. There are more than a half dozen lawyers in the PNCR, yet they entrusted this task to Joseph Harmon alone. The leaders of APNU/PNCR should take full responsibility for such poor representation of the people of Linden. But this is not the first time they have done that.

The opposition continues to play with the lives of the poor and the working class. This is why we believe that Dr Luncheon can operate with such insolence and lack of respect for the majority political opposition. It is all because of their handiwork. Dr Luncheon in his own words justified the theft of the intellectual property of struggling authors by making it clear that the PPP is not going to be “worried with what the media and politicians say because the media and politicians do not figure significantly in our own handling of this matter.”

How much lower can the operations of the regime descend? Where is their morality and integrity? By their own actions they are telling the people of Guyana that it is okay for them to steal and that they should not worry about the consequences.

Guyanese must condemn the stealing/pirating of intellectual property from struggling authors. It pains us to see what Guyana has become under the PPP regime. Where is the Minister of Education Pryia Manickchand who seems to correct everyone else when it comes to morality and integrity except her own government? Would she tell the students that the textbooks they are using were pirated/stolen materials? Why is she so quiet suddenly?

The opposition should let Guyanese know that the act of pirating is tantamount to stealing and they should immediately tell the regime not to proceed with such a shameful act. But APNU continues to work with the PPP behind closed doors and in the process is shutting the AFC and their supporters out of the system of governance, which has resulted in greater maladministration by the PPP which continues to fail to adequately represent the dreams and ambition of Guyanese.

Many of the PNCR/APNU supporters are of the opinion that the majority parliamentary has gone AWOL on those who elected them. This is another classic example of the  fact that voting race in Guyana whether it is for the PPP or the PNC is a negative equity game for the poor and the working class.

The Indo-Guyanese who voted for Donald Ramotar because he is an Indo-Guyanese and those who voted for David Granger because he is an Afro-Guyanese must come to grips with the brutal fact that racial voting does not pay; race will definitely not increase or improve the chances of success for the poor and the working class in Guyana.

The opposition should return from being AWOL and begin the work of serving the people rather than serving the PPP. And if they do not have the backbone to stand up to the PPP then they should make way for others like Carl Greenidge, Sharma Solomon, Moses Nagamootoo and Nigel Hughes to serve the poor and the working class. This is not the time for games; this is the time to suit up and prepare for the struggle against an oppressive quasi-dictatorial regime. This is the time for the leaders of the opposition to take up the mantle and fight to improve the living conditions of the poor and the working class.

Yours faithfully,
Asquith Rose
Harish S Singh