Editorial

American photographer Seph Lawless in his book Autopsy of America: The Death of a Nation has documented the failed state of the shopping mall in the United States of America with a series of eerie photographs of empty decaying buildings, shattered display windows, naked mannequins and broken parking lots.

By the time this editorial appears in public we would most likely already have been in possession of the outcomes of yesterday’s meeting between the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) and President David Granger, the invitation to the Union to meet with the President coming in the wake of its call to teachers countrywide to withdraw their services to press its demand that government treat frontally with its proposals for salary increases and other benefits.

On June 2nd this year, after rejecting the second list of GECOM nominees submitted by Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo, President David Granger had this to say about the way forward.

As was pointed out in the Stabroek News editorial on Monday, the “social compact” about which President David Granger spoke so glibly prior to May 2015 has been all but forgotten.

President Trump’s decision to approach America’s opioid crisis as a “national health emergency” is a welcome departure, if only rhetorically, from his country’s decades-long attitude to illegal drugs.

Since coming into office in May 2015, the APNU+AFC administration has shown an unusual appetite for courting controversy by making decisions and taking actions that are not only unwelcomed by the political opposition, but unpopular with the masses as well.

There is a stark divide in Guyana’s youth population today; referencing young people aged 15 to 24 years.

When the new Gecom chairman was announced last week, the subject of age became a hot topic of discussion.

On weekdays, during the morning peak hours, when the movement of traffic along the East Coast corridor, heading into Georgetown, is at its heaviest, the railway embankment, covering the distance between Mon Repos and Sheriff Street becomes one of the high-risk stretches of coastal roadway.

On Thursday, for the third consecutive year, the APNU+AFC government unilaterally announced hikes in wages and salaries for 14,000 public servants and computed how much this will cost.

No one who is reasonably au courant with events in Guyana will believe that President David Granger did not anticipate the consequences of his actions.

Soil degradation is hardly a commonplace phrase in the media, and it looks dull next to the vocabulary we use for oil (ultra-deepwater wells, synthetic crude, hydraulic fracturing), but the ground beneath our feet is literally disappearing because of over-intensive industrial farming and global warming; and, like petroleum, soil isn’t a renewable resource.

Just one week into the month of October, President David Granger while speaking to reporters at State House concerning the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the alleged plot to assassinate the Head of State, put forward the view that it is important to ensure that the Guyana Police Force (GPF)  can be trusted and is efficient in addressing crime.

It is not enough. It is not anywhere near enough for the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to dismiss the two City Constabulary officers who were implicated in the sexual assault of a vulnerable 15-year-old child, which occurred in August.

Over the last month President Trump has been very critical of the National Football League (NFL) and its players for kneeling during the playing of the American national anthem before the start of games.

It serves no meaningful purpose to restate what, by now, are the well-known facts of the protracted saga of City Hall versus the growing army of pavement vendors who now populate most of the empty spaces in downtown Georgetown.

On March 2nd 2015 after the disclosure of medical aid by the state to senior PPP/C officials including $2.1m in cosmetic dentistry for then Minister Pauline Sukhai, the newly formed APNU+AFC coalition quite rightly expressed its outrage.

It happens to all governments: they come in with the best of intentions coupled with the belief that only they are equipped to ameliorate a bleak situation.

Four years ago at the Oscars the comedian Seth MacFarlane joked that nominees for the best Supporting Actress category would “no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.”

“Read my lips: no new taxes!” This phrase was one of the most quoted sound bites emanating from George H W Bush, speaking at the 1988 Republican National Convention, in accepting the Republican presidential nomination.