It is better to go with assured, safe progress

Dear Editor,
RECENTLY a man said to me: “Guyanese don’t know about order you know. They don’t like all this cleaning up that the government is doing.” He was inaccurate because it’s instead that Guyanese have gotten so used to disorder under the PPP/C that the shift to order has been shocking.

There are obviously good things, like the cleaning up of Georgetown’s streets and waterways, and things that require some getting used to, like the more effective tax collection systems being put in place. Guyanese are now making their minds up about these things, but I want to pour some daylight on the recent outbursts by MP Juan Edghill, leading to his four day suspension from the national assembly. There is definitely a pattern of lawlessness by the PPP/C that is both dangerous and costly.

Something as small as the Speaker telling a PPP/C MP to sit escalated into a full protest involving nearly all that party’s MPs and the numerous police called in to enforce the speaker’s lawful instructions. If they can’t follow something as simple as a directive by the Speaker of the National Assembly, then you can only imagine the chaos that the PPP/C will happily let loose if they return to office.

Add to that the national revenue from oil and you have a recipe for disaster on the scale Guyanese haven’t seen. Corruption might not yet have been stamped out in the current regime, but at least they are making a serious effort to organize the nation and set up clear structures. It is no accident that the passport office is a breeze to deal with and the Guyana Revenue Authority an experience just as efficient. The PPP/C would bring revenues from oil to Guyanese in a basket full of holes. Money will leak into the pockets of government officials without end if there is no order.

More than simple graft, however, we have to ask questions about the safety of citizens if a party that governed during the time of death squads is handed hundreds of millions of US dollars a year. Would we see a return of death squads under a PPP/C government? With a track record of flouting rules and any kind of law and order, this is a very valid question.

What if someone junior in that party, recognising that enforcing the law is not a party priority, decides this is the way to deal with political opponents. Will the military then have to be called up to run criminal elements out of the country as they were during that dark time in Guyana’s history? These concerns are really not about MP Juan Edghill’s open defiance of the law–that was a trivial mistake on his part. They are about an attitude to law and order that means Guyanese have to contend with all manner of terrifying possibilities if the PPP/C gets their hands on so much money.

Guyanese have to know that under the current administration, progress will be steady, reasonable and safe. Under the PPP/C, literally anything can happen. Maybe the economy will boom. Maybe all the oil money will be stolen and MPs flee the country from airstrips in the bush. Maybe death squads will lead to massive civil unrest and the economy tank as a result. These are all reasonable possibilities, but one thing is clear; it is better to go with assured, safe progress than the possibility that literally anything will happen, including the army chasing criminals through your village late at night.
Regards
Malcolm Marshall

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