Step back from opening the floodgates to corruption
In my time, it would be unthinkable to block a roadway at both ends of a public highway. For the sake of our country, I plead with the government to step back from opening the floodgates for corruption and putting vast sums in the hands of inexperienced persons.
The question of taking sums from the National Resources Fund (NRF), and this irresponsible and unnecessary borrowing crusade is another matter. But Editor, somewhere hidden in the bosom of the ruling elite there is a grand scheme to deceive when the General Secretary of the PPP, for reasons which are obscure, states we are not yet a rich country. He is wrong, even with the inadequate revenues from oil, gas, diamonds, etc., Per capita, we are the richest people in the world, but thanks to the policies, proclivities and propensity of the PPP many of our citizens are poor. Earlier efforts to establish a national building code were frustrated by this administration. A building code will provide guidelines for whether you’re building a one-bedroom house or a massive multi-storey edifice. With the aid of the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers (GAPE), this should be a sinequa-non before embarking on this spending spree as noted in the 2024 trillion dollar Budget. Further, it is ludicrous for Ministers and the President, when they visit state-sponsored works, to complain about shoddy work, failure to meet deadlines, etc., If, as should be, experienced professionally driven persons are assigned to each and every project, this bombast by the President and his Ministers would not be necessary. But therein is our problem throughout the country since the PPP took office. Their obsession, their priority, their proclivity are a technique and trick used by dictators and we see this particularly in areas where they do not have critical control. You tie a man’s feet and hands, throw him overboard in deep water and the President and his Cabinet colleagues come along with their scriptwriters, cameras and speedboat to pluck you out of the water and declare to the world that they are your saviours, the new messiahs.
I end with a plea that the President listen to the voices of reason and concerned patriots and to remind him that while being the fastest growing economy, borrowing to proceed with massive multibillion projects, ‘you can fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all the time.’ Finally, I ponder why should our government, representing the descendants of our original people, slaves and indentured, pursue policies inimical to their own self-interest and will likely burden and be a millstone around the necks of our children and our grandchildren when we look at the crumbled roads, hospitals, shortage of drugs and medical personnel, schools without teachers and teaching aides, and what is now a blessing will be a curse. May Allah, God, Lord Krishna or whatever name you call the Creator, may he save us from the demons of destruction.