It is being reported that the David Granger administration will provide a coalition of Afro-Guyanese with a yet undisclosed amount of money. No doubt that figure will amount to millions and even billions. The disguise is that the monies will be used to improve the lives of a certain segment of the Afro Guyanese population. And while the amount of money is not yet determined, the deal is already sealed and will be financed by in the 2018 budget.
Mr. Granger has stated that given the contents of the Afro-leaning, Cuffy 250 Committee’s proposal to him, he will move ahead to facilitate the funding of the concept as outlined in the application. The financial pledge is couched in the United Nations-designated International Decade of People of African Descent designation. However, the pledge is very problematic.
Firstly, this UN designation has not recommended or mandated that any government bequeath millions of dollars to a particular segment of the population. And the UN would not have done that, if only because they know that such a recommendation would inflame racial animosity and fuel ethnic tensions, from other segments of the population. Yet the President has chosen to make such an unhealthy decision.
I am not particularly concerned that the President has singled out an Afro Guyanese group to award these monies to. I would have been equally as outraged if this was done by Jagan, Bharrat, or Ramotar for some select Indian committee. Indeed, if either of the Indian Presidents had done this, Mr. Granger would not have let it slip by. And I would have led the charge, like I am doing now, and I would even have backed him if he had raised concerns against such a move.
Let the record reflect, that I and the United Republican Party (URP) have been calling for a pay-out for the sugar workers, rather than the constant annual bail-outs of the billions of dollars that the successive governments have been making. I believe that the repeated bailing out of GUYSUCO amounts to a pampering of the fact-cats who are at the head of that cooperation. A huge part of those funds remains with the top executives, or goes to pay for services that they and their cronies have billed the entity for. So yes, I am very consistent in my objection to these unethical practices, irrespective to which race engages in, or benefits from, them.
I have been in this arena for a long time and I am fully aware of what the President is doing. Mr. Granger, under the disguise of this UN resolution, is playing the race card and positioning himself to dole out what will amount to a kind of reparations to this Afro-Guyanese group. And while this might seem all nice and pleasant to the current administration and those earmarked to benefit, it will further alienate the other races in this Great Land of Guyana.
We all know that the Granger administration has been hemorrhaging their core supporters. The Coalition has all but abandoned the Afro-Guyanese. Since they came into power the employment rate has remained flat, the immigration in general has increased (but more particularly among Afro-Guyanese). The APNU/AFC lead M&CC has put hundreds of their core supporters out of work and has driven them into desperate survival activities. So the President is pledging tens of millions to be used by this sub-group of the Coalition’s supporters to buy back political support.
I and the URP are therefore asking that the Country Coordinating Mechanism and the United Nations distance themselves from this political charade. This will not bode well among the enclave of Guyana’s other five races, if only because nothing so outlandish and exuberant has ever been done to benefit any one race over the others.
The highlighted stigmatization, poor family structures, teenage pregnancy, repeat offenders, discrimination and xenophobia, are by no means unique to Afro-Guyanese and even if they were, national policies should be implemented to deal with those issues, rather than dishing out millions to a sub-set of the population.
I really hope that commonsense will prevail and that the Granger-led administration, with an Indian 1st Vice President and an Amerindian 3rd Vice President, will not used this blatant political flagrancy to further divide our nation.