Dear Editor,
YOUR media report, “Parking meter group now agitating for early elections”, August 16, 2019, confirms my belief of just what I have always contended, that this group is political in nature. This has been my contention from the very day that they came out to protest against City Hall in droves.

This is not to say that they may not have had a legitimate reason to protest against the issue of the Parking Meters; but, simply put, the Parking Meter controversy provided their numbers with the perfect veneer for protesting against the government.

In positing this, one must not forget that this group is comprised mainly of people from the Private Sector that is part and parcel of the PPP/C-led political movement against the A Partnership for National Unity+ Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC), and it would seem that they have a vendetta against the government. Thus, its modus operandi on those Thursdays outside of City Hall have now come into question about their true motive.

For all their protests, one wonders how many of the larger numbers have been honouring their civic duty, like paying their rates and taxes; for according to recent ‘stats’ there is still the matter of multi-billion of dollars owed the City, meaning that the defaulters would be many from the Private Sector.

Reading the comments by one of their members, it is of the same dip from the dishonest pool of misinformation and disgusting lies that originated from the PPP/C. To state, emphatically, that Government should “have honoured and respected the Constitution which is the law of the land”, and that “having lost the no- confidence motion, the government has not yet abided by the Constitution” speaks of a woeful, pathetic misunderstanding of the events that have subsequently followed the NCM, and a disgusting regurgitation of the Jagdeo line of party propaganda.

In essence, they are all singing from the same song book. Except that one would have thought that with all the explanations given by the government, there would have been a clear understanding of the events.
Granted that there was no parking meter controversy in 2014, but there was the proroguing of Parliament by President Donald Ramotar. Did any of these “constitutional watchdogs” protest against Ramotar’s action, which did stifle parliamentary democracy, as his actions thwarted debate on the NCM that had been brought against the then regime? As a matter of fact, one must add the disrespect shown to the APNU and AFC opposition parties, who only became aware of the parliamentary status quo ante when they arrived at the House’s chamber.

And one can add the more than deafening silence of these so-called “Guardians of the City”, who may have also been living in another dimension as the capital city gradually sunk and stifled under the garbage piles and their putridity.

This is just plain political rabble-rousing and expediency, shamelessly deliberate in seeking to sustain political spin and political mileage. One wonders just what do these representatives of the parking meter group hope to achieve?
Regards,
Mark Dacosta