Dear Editor
I wish to preface this letter by noting that I have come to regard with much greater respect, Dr. Cheddi Jagan and his political party, the PPP, after reading up a bit on our history. As such, I have decided to refer to Jagdeo and his acolytes, versus the PPP as much as possible now and in the future, since by now we recognise that the PPP no longer represents and reflects the vision and values of Dr. Jagan.

We continue to hear about the economic growth that was achieved under the PPP administration from the Jagdeo camp, and this is something we think needs to be placed in context so that no one is deceived regarding these claims. Everyone knows that a significant amount of narcotics trade was carried out under the leadership of Jagdeo and his acolytes during their last 10 years in office. Around Georgetown alone we saw massive structures running into the hundreds of millions, probably even billions of dollars, going up for which we knew it was impossible for the owners to have accumulated that much money on their regular businesses or incomes. This along with the massive corruption racket involving hundreds of billions over the years helped finance the economic growth to which you refer. Guyana lost hundreds of billions of dollars through Jagdeo’s corruption racket, which helped finance a lot of private construction, businesses etc., not to mention the personal mansions and financial wealth of Jagdeo and his acolytes. For example the economic growth referred to include the G$80 billion or so waylaid for the construction of the road to Amaila Falls, which today has come to naught. We maintain that if Guyanese want to escape poverty, racial strife and dishonest government politicians, they have to give up the political parties which have given them poverty, strife and lying public officials. It’s common sense.

Further, PPP supporters, traditionally Indian Guyanese, particularly rice farmers and sugar workers, can only expect more of what they endured under Jagdeo. This is because Jagdeo sees these people as peasants, citizens of a lower class (who in socialist parlance represent an economic threat because they own land and can generate income for themselves without reliance on the State), which is why he allowed millers to rob rice farmers and hang them out to dry. He keeps sugar workers for their votes, as everyone should by now have figured out. People employed doing hard labour in cane fields need to ask themselves why after a century or so of the halt of Indian immigrants to Guyana, after the decades of abuse and underpayment, they still find themselves in the clutches of the sugar industry. Is this what they want for their children?

Regards
Craig Sylvester
Democratic National Congress