The United Republican Party (URP) wishes to congratulate the Alliance For Change (AFC) for their decisive and unmovable stance in relation to the parking meter fiasco and more particularly their forthright objection to the treatment of Mr. Sherod Duncan. The URP also wishes that the AFC would get back to representing the people and be more unhinged from the PNC.

This parking meter deal was a PPP-styled, crookish, and secretive undertaking. The beneficiaries are no doubt the PNCite and members of their cabal. It is therefore noteworthy that the AFC top brass in the parliament and cabinet took over a year to put a stop to this illicit venture. Maybe it is that they were finding their footing. Maybe it is because they were busy with other stuff. Nonetheless, the voters took note of their attitude and they have lost considerable ground on this front. They did not regain any credibility for their late objection to this parking meter failure. However, what their input did was validate Mr. Duncan and further catapult him as a political force to be reckoned with.

The PNC-Coalition should see the sizable objection to this unhealthy parking meter deal as a warning sign that the Guyanese populace is unto to them. This clarion cry for the overturn of the parking meter covenant and the oft-repeated protests should show the current administration that the sleeping giant of the Guyanese working-class is gradually awaking out of its slumber. As the saying goes, You can trick some of the people some of the time: You can trick most of the people some of the time: You can trick most of the people most of the time: But you can’t
trick all of the people all of the time. Technology, access to current global information and a humanistic desire for a good life (the kind the politicians now live), are making it to where acceptable change is becoming a prerequisite for civil obedience.

The masses have seen and are seeing the protests around the world as humans stand up and demand what is rightfully theirs. The Guyanese citizenry fastly understands that in Guyana nothing comes easy and without a fight. From the days of President Burnham, all through the PPP years to now, Guyanese have never gotten what is theirs. The politicians live like gods but the ordinary man has never gotten his due. From reasonable land ownership, to earning a living wage, everything in Guyana has got to be obtained by blood, sweat, tears and protest. And the Guyana residents are slowly realizing this fact.

The teachers had to march and protest to have the Smart City Solutions agree not to charge them for parking. The city businesses have had to protest to have the contract of the parking meter reviewed. The drivers have had to come out and picket the Mayor and City Council to get the rates reduced. All this happened but never without a battle.

Now the URP joins with those who are calling for the complete revocation of the parking meter contract. We are now convinced that this matter was illegal from its conception and therefore should not be allowed to remain. During the days of Jagdeo we had several secretive, crooked and scampish deals, which included the Marriott, the Berbice Bridge, the Ameila Falls, the Sanata Textile Mill, the Cheddi Jagan Airport, the Skeldon Sugar Factory, the Petro Caribi agreement and dozens of others undertakings that the audits have since revealed. We will not stand by and allow the PNC-Coalition to mount up their own crookish deals. Already they are several questionable transactions attracting the attention of the country, that even Jadgeo wants to bring criminal charges against the government. When Jagdeo can say that someone is a scamp; when Jagdeo says he smells a rat, it speaks volumes!

So the URP is going on the records in asking the M&CC to scrap this pending parking meter deal. We agree with all the stake holders that Georgetown can do with some kind of traffic regulation, however, a contract which is illegal, oppressive and otherwise detrimental to the City of Georgetown, is not the way to go. We also would like to ask the AFC cabinet members and parliamentarians to use their Cummingsberg bargaining powers to bring a halt to this travesty. If one AFC man can bring the job this far, the host of the other ACF leaders can complete the task.

The AFC has been caught with its political skirt down and its slip is showing; and it is soiled. For two years they have slept with the enemy and sold its soul for a mess of pottage (borrowing from the Biblical story of Esau and Jacob). After they have just about completely and utterly destroyed any credibility they had with those who supported and pushed them into recognition and government, they are now trying to save face.

About four of the AFC’s executive members sit in the PNC-Coalition cabinet. This includes the Prime Minister; the Minister of Public Security; the Minister of Public Works and; the Minister of Business. They all know of the universal objection to the nonsensical parking meter deal. They know of the illegality of the project. They know who are to benefit from the deal and why. They know that it is a burden on the poor and underpaid Guyanese workers. Yet they allowed a few autocratic, selfish, charlatans, to push forward a PPP-style, crookish, deal and they (the AFC cabinet ministers) said absolutely nothing.

They sat and watched as every process and system was put in place to bring the parking meter to a realization. They heard all the discussions that were taking place to legalize that financial monstrosity. Yet they said absolutely nothing. They waited until all was good and set to formalize and legalize the parking meter deal and then when they can do nothing, or very little, to remedy the situation, they issued a statement in opposition to the deal they allowed to be enacted.

Does the AFC think the Guyanese people are fools? Do they really believe that they could execute such poor administrative judgment and not be punished for it politically? The supporters of the AFC sent them into parliament and then into government to represent the interest of the working-class people of Guyana: not to look after their own interest and for sure not to foster the interest of the PNC (whose people are the beneficiaries of this deal). The AFC kowtowed to the PNC and watched whatever little support they had, erode into oblivion.

Now that the folks are taking to the streets; now that they ire of the masses have been provoked in their cry for justice, in the wake of a dictatorial onslaught, the AFC has crawled out of their political malaise. The United Republican Party (URP) wishes to remind the Guyanese people that the AFC has tied its hands when it went to bed with the PNC. They sold their birthright when the collated with a party that has some very unique and questionable approaches to governance.

The AFC has only one option in the interest of the national good and that is to assert itself in the Collation and do right by the Guyanese people, by returning to their posture of being interested in the things that the ordinary man is interested in. And if the PNC does not want to acquiesce and flex, then the AFC must enact (or threaten to enact) a pull-out of the Cummingsberg Accord. The URP is stating that the country cannot continue to be abused and prostituted by carrier politicians and political cronies who are bent of filling their pockets. The AFC is caught between a rock and a hard place and their true colors are very visible.