THE OPPOSITION People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is currently in talks with Member of Parliament Charles Ramson Jr, who is set to accept a Chevening Scholarship to pursue graduate studies in the United Kingdom. Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo demurred Wednesday on confirming Ramson’s possible resignation when asked by this newspaper.
Mr Jagdeo said Ramson is currently engaging with the party on this issue.
The son of former Attorney General and now Commissioner of Information Charles Ramson, Ramson Jr first appeared in the National Assembly for this 11th Parliament.
Ramson, an attorney-at-law, was admitted to the Bar in 2010.
From the onset of the PPP’s participation in the 11th Parliament, Ramson had asserted himself as the unofficial voice on youth issues for the Opposition.
Ramson, in his inaugural address to the National Assembly last August, criticized the David Granger administration for its low youth participation in both the National Assembly and the executive government.
He had also challenged the structural shift of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport into the Department of Culture, Youth and Sport, now accommodated under the Education Ministry.
Ramson’s remarks at the time incurred the wrath of Minister within the Ministry of Public Health, Dr Karen Cummings, who countered that in 23 years of the PPP/C Government, there was an increase in youth unemployment by some 40 percent.
Cummings cited a Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) report titled “Youth are our future: The Imperative of Youth Employment for Sustainable Development,” which placed Guyana’s youth unemployment around 40 percent.
The CDB’s definition of “youth”, however, were persons aged 15 years to 24 years. While the international youth definition is 15 years to 35 years.
Ramson’s legacy in Parliament took an embarrassing dip when he mispronounced the word “battalions” in quoting Shakespeare, instead bellowing “bantylions.”
The young parliamentarian was also tripped by Presidential Advisor on Youth, Aubrey Norton, who challenged the young politician on his comments about the National Youth Policy which was announced in Finance Minister Winston Jordan’s last budget speech.
“Were Mr. Ramson Jr a serious young politician who pays attention to current affairs, he would have noted that the media houses, including all newspapers and the Guyanese public were informed that the Draft National Youth Policy has been completed and therefore, he would not have arrived at the erroneous conclusion that they are “unable to come up with the national youth policy,” Norton wrote in a letter to the press.