Dear Editor,
What is absolutely clear today, after two years under President Ramotar, is that he is not in charge of his government. The PPP continues to act as a bully and will never accept its position as a minority government. All its acts as the government of the day, as it relates to the people’s human development needs, clearly show that it thinks it is more important than those needs. This is Jagdeoism as practised by the Ramotar administration.
All that has happened since 2011 has been cosmetic changes; there is very little of substance. That is why it is imperative that the PPP be made aware that a few dozen private sector business leaders are not the voice of the people. These determined attempts to window dress and bamboozle the nation that they represent the voice of the majority will not work.
However, the truth remains that the people do care about amendment to the anti-money laundering bill but they show much more interest in their own personal economic well-being. Better wages, better education for their children, better pensions, better services from the state and most importantly, better leadership from the PPP are vital to Guyana moving forward. As a first step to addressing the people’s human development needs, we have to ensure we get value for money on all public expenditure – hence a better procurement system. All of this must be complemented by a functional and elected local government system.
See where this is going? The PPP ministers can shout their propaganda from the top of Mount Roraima, 24 hours a day, but the status quo will not change because of their poor leadership on the issues.
The PPP believes that the well-being of our citizens is served by pandering to a dozen private sector leaders but this could not be further from the truth. The people are fed up with the Minister of Finance fighting down the elderly to give them a decent pension in place of irresponsible expenditure not sanctioned by parliament. Who pays for all of this? Those same workers and pensioners who continue to make sacrifices by ‘binding their bellies.’ The deprivation of economic benefits does not see race; it is every man, woman and child in the working class, regardless of race who continues to face economic hardship because of these acts of bad governance from the PPP.
Thus no one should be surprised when the Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) turned up on NCN as a defender of the PPP’s corrupt policies; he has no choice. But it does not mean the veracity of his comments can be confirmed. Actually the comments unmasked the PSC leadership for what it really is ‒ an extension of the PPP. The PSC has mastered the art of revealing how vested interest outweighs integrity.
So the PSC leaders have a choice: stay in the PPP camp or commandeer positions of principle and become facilitators in the process of building this nation by causing the PPP to see the reasoned point of view of the people. The ball is in their court. Let us hear from the PSC on the garbage situation in Georgetown, the local government elections and the Public Procurement Commission.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Asquith Rose
Harish S Singh
