PLEASE permit me a space in your letter column to express my opinion regarding the project of a certain three who take up valuable print space to register narrow-minded views.

I refer here to the article captioned: ‘ Guyana has never been this bad, say Lewis, Witter and Benschop’, and published in the Saturday August 15 edition of the Stabroek News.

Trade unionists Lincoln Lewis and Norris Witter and social activist Mark Benschop have been infamous for all sorts of irresponsible commentaries and actions, and have again made utterances that are rife with sentimentality and no substance. These gentlemen have, thus, been constructing for themselves a persona which can be appropriately named “The Trivial Trio”.

The Trio asserts that never since the pre-colonial struggles of Dr Cheddi Jagan has Guyana been this bad. The ‘bad’ seems to be defined by what they contend to be ‘President Bharrat Jagdeo’s “tyrannical reign”’; the reign of the ‘criminal drug empire’; the administrative obstruction to ‘free and fair elections’; and the government’s complicity in illicit acts.

Assertions that the current height of allegations of government ministers’ involvements in illicit acts is unprecedented may be formidable indeed. But have these gentlemen gone to the level of producing empirical evidence of this? Have they registered any supporting argument to their claim of President Jagdeo’s ‘tyranny’? Have they submitted facts to prove that the reign of the criminal drug empire and the contravention to the democratic right to free and fair elections are solely attributable to the tenure of the Jagdeo administration? If not, then of what merit are their claims?

Despite current unfortunate realities, no fair, objective Guyanese can refute the fact that under the leadership of President Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana has enjoyed an unprecedented level of growth made possible by significant infrastructural developments, expansion and modernisation of critical economic areas and improvement of general livelihood of the citizenry. The indicators are present for all to see.  

It is obvious that the Trio has a clandestine motive; even this will soon be revealed given how inclined these gentlemen are to spewing their angst toward the Government. Or should one conclude that this angst is as a result of what these gentlemen claim to be the administration’s ‘imposition of wage increases for public servants’ and ‘withdrawal of state funding given to Critchlow Labour College and the Guyana Trades Union Congress’?

Whatever the project, their impetuous claims and myopic views have been reducing them rapidly to nothingness; they run the risk of becoming invisible in the eyes of readers should they persist in this version of critiquing which they have made their own.
GUY SCHOLARI