Dear Editor,
PLEASE allow me a space in your letters column to partly look at the above subject as the coalition government enters its third year in office. These three years make the PPP 23 years look really bad. It shows in three years what the PPP could not have done in their 23 long years.
Today, the PPP wants us as Guyanese to believe and feel as if they had Guyana at heart and as if they cared for Guyanese and the working class. The three years in government exposes the 23 years of the PPP’s failure to develop Guyana’s infrastructures, its working class, its health, security, agricultural and education sectors. The three years also exposes that party’s unfairness to all those seeking jobs, equality, transparency and accountability and its racism and vindictiveness towards those who do not agree with the dictatorship of the party’s leadership.
In three years we saw and heard what citizens could not have done in the 23 years of the PPP and that is FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Today I can proudly say that every Guyanese has found their voice, be it government supporters that are speaking up to the government publicly or those that support the opposition. Some of our well-educated and highly qualified Guyanese could not have found their voice in 23 years to tell the PPP Government anything. Today they truly want to be patriots of this land by cussing out this APNU+AFC in three years.
In three years this APNU+AFC government ministers have never threatened any media owner or their employees to go after them, but the PPP did it within their 23 years in office. Brothers and sisters, this is the three years government that brought back local democracy in this land and we are having local government elections.
This type of elections allow anyone to run for their area, it’s not a dictatorship election anymore whereby some were barred from running because they are not politically affiliated, especially to the PPP. This was achieved in three years for the grassroots people.
In three years we saw drug lords being pulled from doing their business as if it was a legal one. We read and heard of the amount of drugs that are being found today, and the many being prosecuted under this three-year government. This was never done under the PPP’s 23 years.
TOTAL SECURITY REFORM UNDER THIS GOVERNMENT
We saw the CPGs (Community Policing Group) being made as a political arm of the PPP, they were used to do political work for the PPP throughout Guyana during the elections. They were handed political gifts as handouts. Today many of the said CPGs are failing the purpose of that arm because they cannot be used by the PPP and have those handouts. CPGs today, under this three-year government are more open and transparent than those years under the PPP.
It took the APNU+AFC government three years to do what the PPP could not have done in 23 years for the sugar industry. That is to make it viable and profitable again by downsizing the industry to ensure its sustainability. The PPP did not have the nerves to do that because they were using the sugar workers and their families to get support and votes. This three-year old government did it because they want the industry to survive.
The PPP in 23 years could not even better one estate to show that they care for the workers but rather invested billions at Skeldon- the cause of the workers’ plight today. The PPP took the sugar from Blairmont Estate to package it at the new packaging plant in Enmore and called it Demerara Gold. They never looked at the cost of transportation, etc. They did that to show workers and their families that they cared, but we all know it was a game.
The PPP in the 23 years failed the sugar workers and was using them to gain votes and benefits for themselves and cronies. Sugar workers need to understand that GAWU failed to represent them in 23 years. Today GAWU is fighting as if they and their collaborator, the PPP, care for the workers. It’s A Political Game by both GAWU and the PPP. Under the rice sector, the farmers were made a scapegoat and used by the PPP for support. The PPP did not have the guts to implement the correct rates and taxes that had to be put in place at MMA\ADA in accordance with the Act, all because the majority of the farmers are said to be PPP supporters. The PPP used to divert monies from elsewhere in ensuring that the entity survives because they would have lost votes.
This government ensured that the ACT is implemented and today, the same PPP that was and is presently using the farmers, want to challenge an ACT that they had passed when in government. In three years this government ensured that there are proper infrastructural works being done in this land of ours. In three years we have had to fix bridges, roads, streets, pavements and buildings etc., after months of [the villagers] complaining, within various villages and regions under the PPP administration.
I am calling on all my Guyanese brothers and sisters to open your eyes and see the vast difference under this government that is making the PPP go crazy. Let’s look at what the PPP achieved in their 23 years and compare it with three years under this APNU+AFC government, and you will see the reason for the PPP to be afraid of 2020. Many of our own supporters are being led astray by the PPP today. Why? Because the PPP is spreading lies and trying to tell the nation that nothing good is being done under this government.
It is this government that lowered the Berbice Bridge toll that many of the PPP members are using. It is this government that raised the benefits of Old Age Pensioners and PPP members are benefitting. It is this government that is ensuring that there are better streets in villages that Bharrat [Jagdeo] and the PPP are using to access their supporters. Let us not be blinded by the blindness of the PPP. Let’s open our minds and see the reality and truth about Guyana.
No one has anything to lie to you about in this government, but we lived under lies and deception for 23 long years under the PPP. Let’s ask ourselves as to, why did the PPP not want Cdes Moses Nagamootoo, Khemraj Ramjattan and Ralph Ramkarran in their party after the death of Cheddi [Dr Cheddi Jagan]? They took a while to tell those gentlemen that we don’t care about your struggles but we care about our Pradoville’s.
Guyana is on the rise under this APNU+AFC and let’s all cooperate as we work with the government in having that “Better Life for All”.
Regards
Abel Seetaram
Regional Councillor
Region 5
