ONE thing about the PPP is that it has always been rich in policy directions and in programmes to lift Guyana to heights people do not expect out of a country ravished by centuries of colonialism and imperialism and by almost three decades of brutal dictatorship and failed economic policies and programmes post independence. The PPP and its leaders, such as Cheddi and Janet Jagan, Bharat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar have always developed policies and programmes to ensure we steer Guyana in a direction to ensure the end of poverty in our country and to ensure Guyanese are able to attain their potential.
Yet, I read in a Stabroek News editorial that the PPP/C and its presidential candidate are the only ones who have not pronounced on policies for the upcoming elections. This conclusion is absolutely wrong; it is dishonest and clearly bears the imprint of a biased position, one that is evidently  part of a campaign to promote another candidate.
The Stabroek News, like other newspapers, has the right to endorse a particular political party and a particular candidate for the presidency. I will defend that right. But as a newspaper, it has the duty, the responsibility and obligation to be fair and to ensure it makes statements and presents stories that reflect the truth. For the Stabroek News to declare in its editorial that the PPP/C and its candidate is the only political party to not yet offer any policy statement for the elections due later this year is not merely a mis-statement, it is political propaganda more akin to a myopic, biased political activist, than to a newspaper that presents itself as a beacon of fairness and accuracy in a free society. I was disappointed because I remain convinced that Stabroek News is a good newspaper and an important vehicle in the policy of the government to ensure our citizens are informed and aware of the things that affect their lives and the development of our country.
As has been the case in previous free and fair elections in Guyana, the people will have a clear choice, but rarely as clear as in the 2011 elections. The fact is that the people of Guyana are going to have no difficulty in deciding who is best among the candidates for the presidency of this beautiful country and which political party is best for the Government of Guyana.
Come the 2011 elections later this year, Donald Ramotar will be elected by the vast majority of the Guyanese people to be our president and the PPP/C will be elected to form the Government of Guyana over the next five years. It will be a case of a track record and it will be a case of the vision we have for our country. It will be a case of the Guyanese people knowing what are the policies and programmes  that the PPP/C and its presidential candidate promote and have been implementing for close to two decades now. It will be a case of not knowing what the others are up to and knowing their previous records in Government and in the history of our country.
The PPP/C will win the elections above all because it has remained faithful to the dreams and aspirations of our nation and it is the political party that is on record as having  the vision that Guyana will be among the most developed of the CARICOM countries by 2020. It will win the elections because it has a track record of standing by and with the Guyanese people and for fighting for the welfare and betterment of the Guyanese people and for Guyana. It is an unrivalled record for more than sixty years. It has a track record of programmes and policies for the accelerated development of our country.
Donald Ramotar will be elected not only because he is the PPP/C candidate for the presidency, but because he is clearly the most prepared for this job and because he is the one with the policies that would make reality the dream of Guyana being among the most developed countries in the Caribbean by 2020. He has what we call pedigree – son of a working-class Guyanese family and from a working-class community, long years of standing up for the Guyanese people, facing dictators and their guns, fighting for freedom and democracy, engaging people from all walks of life for almost all his life.
But this letter is intended to expose the overt effort of misrepresenting the facts. Let me state, unequivocally, that the PPP/C and its presidential candidate have been clear on policies and programmes for the development of Guyana. This note is not intended to go through the vast number of policy statements and the myriad of development programmes we have implemented, but merely give an example to show how wrong the Stabroek News statement was.
Here is a good example. The PPP/C has long taken a position, and its candidate has clearly in public and in private stated his position on GUYSUCO. The Stabroek News itself has in blazing headlines presented the PPP/C’s and Mr. Donald Ramotar’s positions and policy statements regarding the status of GUYSUCO.
The PPP and its leaders have been in the vanguard of promoting Guyanese ownership of GUYSUCO in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and in the 1970s. When the PNC privatized GUYSUCO, the PPP gave its support because it was an implementation of a PPP policy towards sugar in Guyana. The PNC had agreed with an IMF mandate to privatize GUYSUCO when they were voted out of power in 1992 and the PPP/C stood firmly that GUYSUCO would not be privatized. Cheedi Jagan had stated clearly: “only over my dead body”.
Donald Ramotar stood firmly with the PPP/C’s position then and today stand firmly against the privatization of GUYSUCO as the presidential candidate of the PPP/C. He publicly, with the world watching, reiterated his position and the position of the PPP/C at a public presentation to the business community on May 25th 2011 when he declared that under his presidency, GUYSUCO will be strengthened as a public corporation, an industry that will remain firmly in the hands of the Guyanese people.
This is a clear policy statement. And the Guyanese people have a clear choice on this issue. Mr. Granger, the PNC/R candidate, has opted for a clear policy statement on this issue, too: choosing to pursue privatization of GUYSUCO. The AFC and its presidential candidate have come out and confessed they don’t really know what is the best option for GUYSUCO and they have asked the Guyanese people to elect them first and then they will decide.
When it comes to GUYSUCO we should all know that privatization of GUYSUCO will mean the end of sugar in Guyana or the end of sugar as we know it. Any private sector company will want to close down at least a part of GUYSUCO. We cannot afford to close any estate at this time. We should not close any sugar estate at any time. And we should all know that if the Demerara sugar estates are to be closed, the drainage and irrigation cost that GUYSUCO now carries will have to still be borne by the Guyana Government.
The truth is the sugar industry was near death in 1992 when the PPP/C took over Government. The PNC had brought the industry to its coffin when the PPP/C administration rescued the industry. And while there are still serious challenges for GUYSUCO to overcome, it remains a resilient industry and one of the few sugar industries in the world that has a chance of sustainable development under the present global milieu. It is one of the few sugar industries in Latin America that is looking for expansion, and the truth is that virtually every other sugar industry in the Caribbean and Latin America is looking to close down or to reduce its scope. In addition to expanding the industry, the PPP/C administration has stewarded its modernisation, shifting it from a purely agricultural industry to a fully agro-industrial industry. While the future seems daunting, we know there is a bright future for GUYSUCO.
This is an example where all political parties, particularly the PPP/C and its presidential candidate have made clear policy statements. The Stabroek News was absolutely wrong when it claimed the PPP/C is the only party that has not made any policy statement for the upcoming elections.
But there are other examples. Take our position on transportation – no other party has addressed this policy area. While this is an inappropriate place for me to itemize all the policy statements and programmes, I can state as an example our repeated pronouncements on linking our communities and our country with others – we will expand the road network, river and air transportation by creating new roads, while improving present ones. We will build new bridges to link highways. The Berbice River Bridge is but the beginning. A new Demerara River Bridge will change the landscape on the Demerara River and along the East Bank carriageway. We will improve river and sea transportation with more boats and with more modern ways, such as roll-on, roll-off ferries. We will expand and improve air transportation in the country and with other countries. Ogle is already developing as a genuine municipal airport and others are being contemplated.
The president has announced as a clear policy statement the intention of the PPP/C to build a railway from Diamond on the East Bank to the East Coast Demerara. One good thing in Guyana that the PNC destroyed will be restored in a better way for our country and our people. The PPP/C and its candidate have a clear vision on transportation – to ensure easy access to all parts of Guyana and to other countries.
Whether it’s on IT(Information Technology) and communication, education, health, housing, water, youths, culture, sports, human services, agriculture, industrialization, security, governance and constitution, freedom of the press and freedom of information, gender equality, child protection, human rights, financial policies and foreign affairs or in other areas, the PPP/C has pronounced regularly and consistently on policies and programmes. No political party in Guyana and all of them together have not and will never be able to match our record for clear policy directions.
Let me, therefore, dismiss the Stabroek News assertion that the PPP/C has not made any policy statement for the future as misrepresentation and political propaganda. It’s really unbecoming of the Stabroek News to forget its role and to become such an open propagandist.