THE CITY COUNCIL AND MINI BUS PARKS

Written by Ralph Ramkarran
Saturday, 30th January 2016, 9:00 pm

The City Council announced last week that it would take the traffic situation in hand. It is unlikely that the City Council would have known that funds would be allocated in the budget for this purpose. After disastrous past experiences, the City Council should not be allowed to preside over parking arrangements for mini bus and taxi parks in the city. The Municipal and District Councils Act gives it no such power. It is a Police function, which appears to have been abandoned, as the City Council assumed jurisdiction.

Starting from the core area outside Stabroek market, occupied by the yellow Motor Transport buses between the 1950s and 1970s, mini bus and taxi parks expanded.  Between Avenue of the Republic and Water Street they occupied from Hadfield Street to Regent Street, from the National Assembly to the Bank of Baroda with the bulk in the Stabroek Market/Demico House and the Regent Street/Commerce Street areas. About ten years ago the City Council decided to further expand these areas for use by mini buses and taxis.

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THE CLOSURE OF WALES ESTATE

Written by Ralph Ramkarran
Saturday, 23rd January 2016, 9:00 pm

It is only after the magnitude of the potential disaster became apparent to the public that the Government began to scramble for a plan to protect workers of Wales Estate and farmers who supply cane. The closure of Wales Sugar Estate would impoverish the 1,700 workers and their families, cane farmers and their families and all others who are sustained by the existence of Wales Estate. The Government’s plan, announced in bits and pieces and later advertised in the media, is likely to fizzle as rapidly as it was hastily concocted. Offering some workers jobs at Uitvlugt and the vague notion of a waterway to transport farmers’ canes are not enough.

Unless serious and constructive ideas are put together and adopted, unemployment and poverty would devastate the Wales and Canal No. 2 communities and adversely affect the economy of Region 3. This impending disaster and its horrific social consequences could and should be averted.

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START AT THE TOP

Written by Ralph Ramkarran
Saturday, 16th January 2016, 9:00 pm

‘Arrogance and complacency cost the PPP last year’s elections,’ screamed the headline in Stabroek News of January 1, reporting on the year-end press conference of former President Bharrat Jagdeo, now Leader of the Opposition. He is reported to have said that ‘there was a severe disconnect between the party and its supporters on the ground’ resulting in APNU and AFC ‘gaining footholds among PPP supporters.’ He attributed this to the PPP’s complacency and arrogance and vowed to work hard to strengthen the party by going ‘house to house to people right across this country and rebuilding a connection between them and the party.’ Mr. Jagdeo spoke about the youth being enticed by the coalition because they lacked knowledge of the PNC’s past and the need for the party to work ‘vigorously to incubate a new generation of youthful leaders.’

The single-minded support by Mr. Jagdeo of Mr. Donald Ramotar as the presidential candidate in 2011 was one of the worst displays of contempt and political arrogance in Guyana’s political history. The compelling obsession to continue to exercise governmental authority and control was the sole motivating factor. The PPP leadership, in thrall to Mr. Jagdeo, mistakenly felt that its supporters would accept anything thrown at them.

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CONSULTATION

Written by Ralph Ramkarran
Saturday, 9th January 2016, 9:00 pm

The implementation of the process of consultation required of the President under Guyana’s Constitution has been one of the most controversial constitutional issues since Independence. During the later years of President Burnham’s rule, consultation had degenerated into a perfunctory telephone call to the then Leader of the Minority. After 1985 when President Hoyte assumed office, consultation improved but still consisted of only a meeting at which names were proposed for constitutional offices to which the Leader of the Minority was given the opportunity to accept or reject there and then. This pattern has continued until the present.

Consultation in the most basic circumstances, even in family matters, could never mean less than a process of discourse, an exchange of ideas, consideration by one partner of the views of the other, underlined by the possibility that the position which one or both partners held on entering the discussion could be changed. In matters of national importance under the Constitution, consultation was never allowed to reach even this modest threshold.

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AFTER FIFTY YEARS, TIME TO REMOVE THE OBSTACLE

Written by Ralph Ramkarran
Saturday, 2nd January 2016, 9:00 pm

A large number of observers of varying views believe that the single most important obstacle to progress in Guyana over the past fifty years and before has been the expression of ethnic division in organized political form and the failure to find a resolution to this dilemma by way of a constitutional or any other form of modus vivendi. There is as yet no convincing indication that there is a national commitment that this matter will take centre stage this year, even though constitutional reform has been promised.

Already, however, President Granger, whose party presided over the granting of Independence in 1966 and now presides over the celebration of its fiftieth anniversary, has commenced the event with his party’s well known, politically divisive, narrative about entering 1966 under a state of emergency. This can, but hopefully will not, set the tone for the celebrations of the fiftieth independence anniversary. The narrative that his party brought peace to Guyana from 1964 when it assumed office attracts the counter-narrative that it is those who created the violence that brought it to an end, leading to a one-sided celebration of the anniversary. Let us hope that this will not happen.

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The Conversation Tree is both physical and philosophical. The physical is the tree itself, which has given its name to the road from which it originates at the intersection of the Rupert Craig Highway. It was reputedly first planted by Napleton William King in 1876 to celebrate the birth of his son Napleton Walter. As...
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