Dear Editor,
I REFER to a letter by Mr. Harry Gill captioned, ‘Cannot be trusted to tell the truth’ (GT, July 12). In the letter, the Honourable Member of Parliament, Harry Gill, who may be expected to conduct himself with some decorum, attacks my person in the most vicious and obnoxious manner, totally unbecoming of a man of his office.

Mr. Gill asserts that he reveals his party’s affiliation in his writings, and I do not. He claims, too, that “Mark DaCosta is a paid PNC/APNU Campaign Manager, whose main task is to discredit the PPP/C, using gutter-politics, misinformation, and propaganda. His failure to disclose his association with the PNC/APNU is a deliberate attempt to hide his true identity, and to mislead the Guyanese people into believing his lies and deception. But as the campaign manager, writer, and columnist for the PNC/APNU, Mark DaCosta cannot be trusted to tell the truth.”

May I inform Mr. Gill that while I obviously support the sensible policies of the ‘Coalition’ administration, and oppose the divisive and destructive actions of his party, the PPP, I have no party affiliation, and I have never been a member of any political party. There is, therefore, nothing for me to reveal. Further, his baseless, unsupported statement that I cannot be trusted to tell the truth, and his derogatory insult that my memory is as short as I am, are not only offensive, but below what may be expected of a Member of Parliament. Perhaps Mr. Gill should consider respecting himself and others.

May I inform Mr. Gill that I stand by the position that the PPP destroyed the sugar industry. The construction of the US$250M ‘white elephant’ at Skeldon that never performed; the hiring of the overpaid Dr. Rajendra Singh, who is based in New Jersey, as Chairman, for whom the PPP government bought a return ticket every month, and all the other poor decisions that necessitated annual bailouts to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, is sufficient proof of the fact. What Mr. Gill failed to admit is that the sugar industry, having been destroyed by the PPP, was already dead in 2015, and the change of government spared the PPP the embarrassing and unpleasant task of having to downsize the operation, an inevitable undertaking that fell to the ‘Coalition’.

The education sector has also been enhanced. Currently, thousands of hinterland students can attend school, owing to President Granger’s ‘5Bs’ initiative. Other programmes instituted by the APNU+AFC administration have resulted in a significant reduction in the school dropout rate across Guyana.
Before the days of the PPP, education at UG was free; it is the PPP that burdened students with fees. It is the PPP that made tertiary education inaccessible to poor students.

As far as the NASDAQ report is concerned, it is well accepted by the experts that Guyana’s positive economic prospects are not only dependent on oil, but also on the general policies of the APNU+AFC administration. Those include the establishment of a capital town in each region, economic diversification, investments in infrastructure, and others, all of which inspire investor confidence.

I feel sorry for people such as Mr. Gill who must lie in an attempt to rewrite the PPP’s horrible history during the Jagdeo era. And I regret the fact that one of Guyana’s most iconic institutions, the PPP, that was established by the respected Dr. Cheddi Jagan, has fallen to such depths of untrustworthiness and dishonesty.

Sincerely,
Mark DaCosta