We have heard what Lewis wrote ad nauseam

Dear Editor,

With reference to what Lincoln Lewis said in a letter to Stabroek News of March 21, we have heard it ad nauseam (‘This society needs to embrace more liberated and progressive thinking’). There was nothing new; it was the same old rant about defending and helping the downtrodden. The crux of this matter is, who hired these two gentlemen (David Hinds, Lincoln Lewis) in the first place. Their strident calls that it is the government which pulled the strings that are responsible for their dismissal, puts one in the position to assume that they were either solicited, invited, requested, begged or even coerced to lend their expertise to the slumbering Chronicle. Now if a government person man/or woman did entreat them to come aboard, then in the name of transparency, it is incumbent on the two to make the situation crystal clear. If not, they owe the Editor of the Chronicle an apology. In their outbursts they have completely ignored him. He has been vilified and cast aside as someone who does not have a clue about his own worth or his position at the newspaper.

Anyone who read the Chronicle during Lewis and Hinds’s sojourn could have easily recognized it was a bed made for their personal agendas. There was Mr Lewis with the responsibility of all the unions, along with his profound knowledge of the government’s inadequacy; and Dr Hinds’s foresight into politics that is unparalleled.

Two things in Mr Lewis’s letter struck me. According to him,”… I stood at the rostrum at the Labour Day rally and called on the workers/citizens to fire the PPP/C and hire the APNU+AFC come 15th May!” The second thing was his boast: “When the current government was in opposition it benefited from my criticisms of the PPP/C government.” If Mr Lewis had not allowed his great activist ego to get in the way and had been as astute as he should have been, he would have placed his ears to the ground and listened to the ‘tom-toms’ that were constantly beating out two words to the PPP/C ‒ “Get Out.” Patting himself on the back thinking that his speeches made an impact is naive at best, and self aggrandisement at worst.

Mr Lewis failed to recognize that the voting people in Guyana had had enough of the type of government that the PPP/C espoused and were prepared to remove them. He missed how euphoric the population was after the results came out. The weight had been lifted from their shoulders. It compelled residents to dance in the streets.

Mr Lewis like some other people in Guyana speaking from their lofty positions cannot see any positives taking place in this country. Their mantra is to put down and criticize. They can only see the dirty linen, real or imagined.

On the matter of the subvention, its reinstatement was a favour granted by the coalition. For sure if the PPP/C had won the elections, there would have been no subvention regardless of what Burnham had done in the past.

Yours faithfully,

Milton Bruce