AN URGENT RETURN TO THE NEGOTIATING TABLE IS NECESSARY


The Opposition Leader, Mr. David Granger, has said that the Opposition is interested in leverage. He also said that the cuts can be restored if the necessary reforms are undertaken. For his part President Ramotar has pledged his continuing commitment to dialogue even in the midst of denouncing the savage cuts to the Budget by the Opposition. It seems reasonable to conclude that an urgent return to the negotiating table is necessary to mend fences, reduce tension and proceed with the nation’s business.

The passage of the Budget does not resolve the political stand-off which has been brought about by the election results. It merely gives a temporary respite. However, all parties are looking to elections at some time down the road when they hope to increase their parliamentary strength. The PPP has the recovery of the PNC in 2012 to contemplate. In 2012 it recovered the six seats and seven percent of the votes it lost to the AFC in 2006. The PPP/C will be hoping to copy that experience and recover the seven percent of the votes and five seats  it lost to the AFC in these elections.

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CORRUPTION – THE TIME HAS COME TO TAKE ACTION


I wrote and spoke about the issue of corruption in Guyana last year. This issue can no longer be ignored by the Government. Last Sunday’s newspapers carried almost a dozen stories in which allegations of corruption featured. Many of them were exaggerated, frivolous or speculative. But several of them are serious enough to compel the Government to take note. Corruption and allegations of corruption are not going to disappear if we do nothing else other than call for proof, claim that we now have regular reports from the Auditor General, or that we declare our assets to the Integrity Commission while the Opposition members do not. The time has come to take action.

Like many developing countries Guyana has not been able to contain corruption. Since 1992, spending, especially on infrastructure and procurement, has multiplied to levels that we could not have imagined. In any country, much less one with historically weak systems like Guyana, and a sharply divided and adversarial political system, it is not surprising that actual corruption and allegations of corruption are so rife. Admitting that corruption exists ought not an to be issue. It does exist and that cannot be denied. The challenge for the Government is to understand that the opposition is going to make the most politically of corruption and allegations of corruption and to recognize that the answer is to do something about it, not beat its breast about what it has done, which only exposes the inadequacy of its efforts.

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GUYANA ELECTION RESULTS – AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH


The election results were not anticipated even though some felt that the Party would face new challenges at the elections. Now for the first time the Party holds a minority of seats in the National Assembly.

Under the relevant provisions of the Constitution, designed by Burnham and imposed upon Guyana, we are entitled to the Presidency and the President has the power to appoint a government. We chose the course of a minority government rather than inviting one or both opposition parties to join us in a coalition.

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FLEXING MAJORITARIAN MUSCLE


Mr. Carl Greenidge outlined the Opposition’s pre-conceived views on the Supplementary Estimates (‘Estimates’) in an interview in the KN published on Thursday, February 16, just before their consideration by the National Assembly on the afternoon of that day. With his eye on the struggle for the leadership of the PNCR, words like “illegality” and “police action,” and threats to surcharge delinquent officials, flowed liberally against the Government and with reckless unconcern that a consideration of the Estimates do not give rise to such possibilities. Worse, these premature conclusions preceded consideration of the Estimates.

This is the first opportunity which the Opposition has had to flex it majoritarian muscle. And obviously it could not allow the moment to pass. After all, its constituency is looking on and anticipating fire and brimstone, as promised, over issues which the Opposition has made much about during the election campaign – financial mismanagement and corruption. The test of whether it failed or succeeded can be judged by the fact that the Opposition supported the first Paper, except two items, and merely caused the deferment of the second.

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NATIONAL UNITY – HAS THE TIME ARRIVED?


The PPP started life as a political party which consciously embraced all strata of the society. The most important, immediate, objective was the unity of the major races of the main social groups, the working and middle classes, including intellectuals and professionals. At this early time, 1950, the founders of the PPP understood that its eventual goals, independence and socialism, and more immediate goal of universal adult suffrage, could not be achieved with a divided society and without a mass based party.

The wave of euphoria after universal adult suffrage, and then the general elections, were won disguised the deep fissures which then existed in our society. These types of divisions were not new. They first existed between the slave owners and slaves, then the Portuguese and Africans and later between the Africans and Indians. The foundation of these differences was the existence of poverty and the ensuing competition for scarce resources. Of course there were other reasons, much of which have been revealed in the debates since that time and more recently. But the PPP’s ideological posture at that time suggested the primacy of economic determinants, which in its view still plays the leading role in keeping these divisions active .

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