The United Republican Party (URP) would like to thank you all for your kind support. We are aware that you appreciate what we do. While we are still not as influential as the other larger parties, we are nonetheless alert in our underdog status. We thank you for your kind comments when you meet us on the streets. We thank the Editor and the administrators of this newspaper. We know that carrying our letters is not a right but a privilege and we say thank you!
We are at the throes of a new year and we are very sorry that we have come to the end of another year, with a relatively new administration and yet we are basically at the same place. We are just as broke, frustrated and uncertain about the future. Guyanese should not be uncertain of their futures; at least not financially. We have too many natural resources to be poor. However, we continue to suffer for a persistent lack of the kind of leaders who would catapult us into being the nation that we should long have been.
So we at the URP wish you all the best. Try to do the best you can with what you have. They say that when you don’t have horse, you must ride cow. But as you make your New Year’s resolutions, remember to promise yourself that you will not continue to allow the leaders you elect to live the good life – with their families and friends – while you, who put them there, continue to live on the crumbs they make available to you.
As you celebrate your respective reasons for the holidays, remember to remind yourself that the only reason that the politicians are living the good life, is because the country has the resources to make it possible. Guyana has money, it is just that it remains within a certain clique and among a certain people. So promise yourself, that come time to make a change, you will make another change. Promise yourself at this yearend, that you will continue to change your elected officials until you find a group of people who will show from their attitudes and lifestyles that they are prepared to put this country before themselves and their families.
Change is hard but it is necessary. And Guyana will become better, we just have to keep changing around our political leaders until we end up with some who will do right by us. So enjoy your festive season as best you can. Remember to be careful; the crime situation is still out of control. When you stop, remain in your vehicle until you are sure the coast is clear. Don’t walk with too much cash at one time. If you are confronted by gangsters, remember that your life is worth much more than the possession that you are likely to lose. Don’t try to be no hero!!!
Until we speak again, remember that only you can change your circumstance. Blessings on you.

Yours truly, the presumption is that the Granger administration is looking towards the 2020 general elections with much financial panic because just about every avenue of financial cash flows is drying up. The economy remains stagnant. This means that the business men whom the politicians usually rely upon will have less to give. The folks in the Diaspora are publically annoyed with the performance on the coalition government. And while all these realities are steering this government in their faces, the gods of honestly seem to be angrily against them. Because every time they try siphoning some monies through some illegal act, they are being caught with their hands in the financial cookie jar.

They tried with the Sussex Street bond and they got caught. They gained initial embarrassment and contrition, and promised to never do it again. They have since rescinded that crooked contract. Of course, there was the famous ‘BiShan Lin-gate’ scandal. It was noted that the reason for the trip was to trace and secure the US$500 million that is owed to the peoples of Guyana. Be it known that that trip is long over, two years have passed, and the monies are still unaccounted for.

The Guyanese people were appraised by the media, to several other shenanigans and corrupt acts, since this government came into power a few years ago.

Now we have the ‘ExxonMobil-gate’. The government was caught hiding the very first monies that Guyana obtained from our oil. That cannot abode well for the future of oil in Guyana. Ol’ people does say – Wha gon’ bad a morning, can’t come good ah evening. It is no doubt that the government was nefarious in their act to keep that money secret from the Guyanese people. No matter how one spins that behavior, it remains a mystery as to why the Granger administration would hide over $4 billion from the Guyanese people. Even the auditors that the administration hired were not aware of that ExxonMobil money.

Let’s take their argument that they wanted to pay lawyers to defend Guyana against Venezuela’s claim to our territory. Why not publically declare the monies but secretly pay the lawyers? Or at least call in the opposition leader and tell him of the urgency (there is really no urgency), of the need to keep the funds a secret?

The truth, as the United Republican Party (URP) sees it, is that the Granger administration was planning to use that money as an investment in their elections war chess. They are broke and nervous. They have lost the support of many of their larger donors. They have lost the sparkle of many of their local, loyal, foot soldiers and they are hemorrhaging politically, daily. I just had a conversation of one of the largest Afro-Guyanese congregation leaders and he told me that he has lost confidence in this administration. No doubt that displeasure will be translated to that Spiritual Leader’s followers.

Meanwhile, the PPP has all the monies they collected – legally and illegally – while they were in office. They still have the support of the biggest and most connected of Guyana’s business men and women – in and out of Guyana. The folks in the diaspora are slowly returning to their fold. And the PPP has been able to muster a resurgence in their traditional support base. The APNU/AFC coalition is in a financial panic mood as they look towards 2020. Desperate people do desperate things, so expect more attempts at crookedness in the next few months.