Dear Editor,
It’s no secret that the supporters of the PPP, in their hatred for APNU+AFC, would like to see anything initiated by the Granger regime dismantled by the PPP, not without unjust cause. The attempted rigging by APNU+AFC irked us all, but something of vital importance to our future (NRF), initiated by the APNU+AFC, is about to be dismantled and fashioned into the likeness of NICIL. This mode of action can bring the Guyanese people nothing but agony down the road.
NICIL is a company that was formed by President Hoyte to sell out state assets without any consultation from the real owners of the state – the people. Successive PPP regimes and APNU+AFC had used it for the same sinister purpose and in the same manner – as if the state assets were the personal properties of their political parties. With the president em-powered to appoint the board of directors, and the Natural Resources Minister to appoint the two committee members, the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Act is on a head on collision course with the advice from the International Transparency Organizations calling for the NRF to be alienated from political interference as far as possible. In short! With the president and minister appointing the top people, the NRF becomes 100 percent politically controlled, in the footsteps of NICIL.
It is ironic that on the same day the particulars of the NRF bill was being presented by the minister of finance in Parliament, the PPP Gov’t was able to get supplementary monetary allocations working with a 65 member Parliament. Notwithstanding the VP, brainchild of the new NRF, is on record for saying that it would be “impossible to get anything done” with 22 people drawn from a wide cross section of the populace to get a wider participation on what the NRF should and should not be spent on. Is the VP essentially suggesting that 22 is greater than 65? I am appalled at the VP’s concept that seems to suggest that a bureaucracy of 22 is greater and more burdensome than one of 65 to work with. Mathematically, the Coalition 34 as a majority of 65 definitely pales in asininity to the VP’s thesis.
Is the VP losing his mental fortitude? Or does his profane analysis stem from the uncertainty or fear of how much of the 22 will be loyal to the PPP”s motive to obtain free access to the NRF to plunder the people’s patrimony? With a twisted oil contract that the Gov’t refuses to renegotiate, the NRF is the last link that offers the people a little semblance of inheritance from their patrimony. If the NRF bill is passed in its present proposed state, that final link would be broken, heralding the resource curse.
Sincerely,
Rudolph Singh
