Daring challenges were thrown out from two quarters last week to critics of government’s policies on separate issues of national importance, and it is to be hoped that there would be positive responses. The issues involve Linden and electricity rates, and the financial management of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).
First, there was Prime Minister Samuel Hinds’ trenchant criticisms and challenge to the President of the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU), Lincoln Lewis, about his startling allegation that:
“…Six years ago, Linden steam turbines, diesel turbines, diesel generators and the 69KV lines between the Garden of Eden and Linden were removed and taken to develop electricity in the Berbice region…”
Stressing that this claim was “untrue in many ways, and must be condemned for what it is (a coded untruth promoting division),” the Prime Minister challenged the Union’s president to provide evidence in support of his claim, or desist from further spreading of false information designed to divide workers in the bauxite and sugar industries and with unmistakable racial overtones.
Prime Minister Hinds had outlined in a media statement last Wednesday the specific details, when he also pointed to an agreement that had earlier been reached between the government and APNU’s leadership in relation to phased introduction of electricity rates for Lindeners, on the basis of an understanding with GPL, that have long been lower than consumers of electricity in other regions of Guyana.
Then, on Friday (May 11), NICIL Chief Executive Director, Winston Brassington, was to expose trumpeted falsehood by the opposition APNU and AFC about the financial status of the state-owned enterprise and how it conducts its business.
Contrary to what parliamentarians of both opposition parties have been claiming,  among them AFC leader Khemraj  Ramjattan, and APNU’s MP Carl Greenidge,  Brassington was to disclose that having paid out G$20B over the past 20 years in dividends, NICIL’s current balance of funds, as of the end of March this year, was merely GUY$700 million.
That disclosure by the NICIL CEO, supported at a press conference by the Company’s deputy CEO, Marcia Nadir-Sharma, was a staggering contrast to what the AFC had originally claimed to be G$50B in NICIL’s account.
But even as Brassington was providing details of NICIL’s financial status, APNU’s MP Greenidge was engaging in surprising political behaviour in calling for “direct taxpayers action’ against the state enterprise for, as he alleged, disguising “billions” of funds.
For his part, Brassington was dismissing as “jumbie arithmetic” the claim by the AFC’s Ramjattan of NICIL having about GUY$50 (fifty) billion at its disposal.
The challenge from him to NICIL’s critics in and out of parliament, is to prove wrong, with facts, the money currently available in the company’s account ($700 million) and that since the company is accountable, verification could be sought from the Auditor General.
Such then are the claims and realities that separate the government and its political opponents in relation to Linden and electricity rates (case involving GBGWU’s Lewis), and NICIL’s financial accounts versus the APNU/AFC positions. The Guyanese public, would be paying close attention in the interest of truth and orderly national development.