It is late July and as I sit down to write, the media is reporting that ten of Guyana’s deadliest inmates are still on the loose. These men have been accused or convicted for robbing and killing people. The workers in the public sector are being asked to produce more, while the avenues for supplementing their incomes are being daily reduced.
With this as the backdrop, the Government Ministers have doubled their salaries (retroactively to two weeks after they took office) and are finding all kinds of additional ways to increase their avenues of supplementing their own incomes. Yet the news out of the Guyana Public Service Union is that the Government has ditched the 2015/16 wage negations for the average citizens and wants to begin new discussions, only from 2017.
And this is despite the fact that no less than David Granger, the President himself, promised the Union reps. that he would make sure that their concerns are heard. The United Republican Party (URP) is highlighting this in context. We have seen the complete lack of respect for the President among those who surround him. He says one thing and his subordinates do the opposite or something different.
One wonders if it is that Mr. Granger is getting old and tired, or is it that he is not really in charge of the governance of this country? The citizens of Guyana are crying out. They see the financial injustices and the economic inequalities that continue to be practiced in Guyana, even with a change of government. They know that the persons making life difficult for them are not themselves subject to the hardship that they are executing on the hurting public. All Guyanese know that the friends and family members of those in power are already experiencing the Good Life that the President so often speaks about. We all know that while they are enjoying the good life, we will have to fight for ours.
May I venture to say that it might well be that many of the criminal activities being foisted on the vulnerable citizens, are as a result of the policies our governments enact? You cannot continue to roll out policies that weaken the financial stability of the people; policies that hamper their growth; and then not expect a backlash.
With all the crime we hear about in Guyana, we are still being daily subjected to police shake-downs. One police officer told my son who is visiting from the USA, that he borrows the traffic sleeves from his friend and goes out and shakes-down drivers, as a form of supplementing his income. Also, we are hearing that the prison officers are accepting monies from the prisoners to smuggle in cell phones, drugs, weapons and other contrabands, into the prisons. (It is still not clear if the gun used to shoot that prison officer, was a smuggled into the prison.) Everybody is trying to supplement their income.
All these facts are known by the authorities but they continue to turn a blind eye because they are fully aware that the salaries of the law men and women are not anywhere close to being sufficient. Until the government decides that they will treat the citizens of this country the way they are treating themselves, their families and their friends, the crime situation will not get any better in this country.
It is not that folks don’t know who the criminals are, or that they are supportive of criminal behaviors. In talking to the people, this is what I have found out: I have been told that people believe that a great many of the leaders of this country are just as guilty, corrupt and heartless as they so-called criminals. In other words, the crime situation in Guyana, is not bottom-up, it’s coming from the top-down.

As I write this letter I have a heavy heart. Four very deadly men are on the loose. Another who was shot at the scene of the fire for trying to escape, has now escaped from his hospital bed. Minister Roopnarine is leaving the Coalition Government, while the President is behaving clueless as to the state of affairs in Guyana. At the same time, Exxon Mobile is asking the Guyanese press members to not cover their events. Is this the progress that the Guyanese electorate voted for?

However, my desire is to speak of the situation of the rice industry. Rice, as compared with sugar of old, is now likely to play a significant part in the growth of the Domestic Product of Guyana. Over the years, the farmers have instituted practices that allow for a more robust harvest. But even as the farmers and millers increase their yields, there remains a problem with the sale of their rice and paddy.

The Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) has taken the country back into the Burnham days, when the Government used to control everything. Under President Hoyte, the rice sector was privatized. When the PPP came into power, they reversed that privatization policy and brought back the rice sector unto governmental control. We have seen over the years of the PPP how they mashed up the rice industry.

It is no secret that the rice business men and women were the ones who sided with the Coalition, especially the AFC, and brought down the mighty, arrogant, PPP. I have been in rice for years and I helped work to change the PPP from out of power. But I did not see this coming. I really thought that the PNC-Coalition would have taken a different approach than the PPP-Civic. In fact, as I talk with my fellow rice farmers, none of them expected what is now happening.

We all thought that when we changed the government, the new administrators would have change the illegal set-up of the Rice Board and the Guyana Rice Producers Association. We as farmers and millers have long seen how those two entities were bulling and stealing billions of dollars from the small man. We saw what they did with the PertoCaribe deal. We saw how they restricted the farmers and millers from selling their produce on the open market. And so the farmers and millers teamed up to change from the PPP, so that the new government can help them change those wicked and corrupt situations. But now they end up with the same thing!

Well, I am pleased to announce that the United Republican Party (URP), is offering the rice farmers another option. As a rice farmer myself, I know your struggles. I am therefore asking you to come aboard with us. Dr. Thurane Doerga has been meeting with me and we are working on a strategy that will see the rice farmers and millers receiving the maximum amount of money for their products. We will also push for you to be able to sell your product directly to your buyers, on the open market, without having to go through the GRDB.

The two main parties have made a complete mess of the sugar industry and now they are doing the same things with the rice. The AFC has failed the rice farmers. The URP is pledging that we will remain an independent party and push for standards and practices that will work in the best interest of the farmers and millers. We will not allow the continued enrichment of a corrupt few, while the folks who are doing the work and making the investments are disrespected and slighted. Enough is enough.