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.
Every political party has a main theme that sustains them; a kind of default premise. This government has the theme – A better life for all. (That is yet to be realized, as we see only the Government officials and their family and cronies enjoying that better life). When the current government was in opposition, their theme was that the PPP government was corrupt. The nation can now judge for themselves if, or how much, things have changed. The current theme for the PPP seems to be a mixture of blaming this government for all the mistakes they made during their 23 years in power and the notion that if Jagdeo gets back in, he will right all the wrongs he failed to right during his 12 years as President. The mantra for the United Republican Party (URP) is, A Modern and Safe Guyana. However, I want to go back into history. I remember, in the 80’s, when Dr. Cheddie Jagan, URP and I, with the PCD would sit for hours many days on end discussing the Burnham regime and his dictatorial constitution. We were all a part of the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD). It is the PCD that met with President Jimmy Carter and persuaded him to come to Guyana. During those days the theme for Dr. Jagan and the PPP was the need for a reformation of the Burnham Constitution. So we focused our energies on that. We did everything we can to get Burnham out of office, or at least for him to change the constitution so that there would be some modicum of fairness in the governing of Guyana. We all know the history. Desmond Hoyte came in and he did not change the constitution. However, he made some adjustments to the way the PNC operated and a change in the Government of Guyana happened. We who were in the PCD were all excited because we saw in Cheddie Jagan an objective visionary who was so humiliated by the construct of the Burnham Constitution that he would push with all his powers, to change the oppressive arrangement, called a constitution. But he did not. Rather, like Burnham, he used the very constitution to manage the country the exact way that Burnham did. Then Jannet and Jagdeo came into office respectively and they marched in line-step. So we have some 40 years of the enactment of a constitution that has brought Guyana to its knees. The voices calling for a reformation of the constitution is now a clarion call. Even the UN and other members of the diplomatic corp. are calling for the Guyanese administrators to change the constitution. They are suggesting that for the government to do less it amounts to political oppression. I dare say that even as these voices are rising in this world-wind of agitation of the Guyana constitution to be significantly adjusted, I can say proudly that I have been there from the very inception. I was in the trenches lobbying for changes to our badly constructed constitution from the first day it became the law of the land. I was there in the gutters fighting to overturn it ever since Forbes Burnham cloaked himself in it. I was there working to rectify it when the PPP stubbornly embraced it and owned it. And I am here now, still a part of the drumbeat to have the divisive, backwards, autocratic constitution reversed and amended. So for the records, I would publically like to say that I and the URP are willing to lend any support to any group or organization pushing for a revision of the Guyana constitution. And yes, I am very proud to be associated with the fact that every honest-minded Guyanese has now admitted that we need a new constitution. I only hope that the President sees the need to accent to the wishes of the Guyanese and the international community.