THE PSC is calling for an end to prorogation and a stay of the Opposition’s no-confidence motion. However, it is too little, too late.The Private Sector Commission (PSC), which has called for an end to the November 10 prorogation of Parliament, as well as the stay of the Alliance For Change (AFC) sponsored no-confidence motion, should have moved to nip the Opposition’s theatrics in the bud when, from the inception of the 10th Parliament the joint Opposition began playing power games that held the entire nation ransom to their ambitious plans to enter the Executive office through the backdoor.
But it was an ungrateful Private Sector, which is today enjoying the benefits of a country on the move under the PPP/C Government, very much unlike the stagnation through which they suffered under the PNC dictatorship that attempted to derail the previous Bharrat Jagdeo and current Donald Ramotar administrations by funding and encouraging the AFC in election after election.
And while the Government was conferring with all stakeholders and taking holistic approaches to policy-decisions and problem-resolution the PSC was baying with the hounds and running with the hares, giving credence to the most unreasonable, unwarranted, unjustifiable, unpatriotic, destructive, Machiavellian and anti-developmental utterances and actions of the joint Opposition.
The Government was never left to govern peacefully but had to contend with many impediments to governance, including budgetary cuts and valuable time wasted when the Finance Minister had to recurrently resort to the courts in order to resolve Opposition-driven impasses that denied him requisite funds with which to conduct the nation’s business; financial outlays like funding for a Linden Commission of Inquiry and the enforced payout of taxpayers’ dollars to people who were engaged in criminal activities; time and resource-wasting exercises, plus much taxpayers’ dollars expended during and subsequent Opposition-engineered protest actions on one specious, nebulous and frivolous reason after another – all crafted to give Opposition relevance and demonstrate the joint Opposition’s power in the body politic, especially during this new configuration in Parliament.
The Opposition media constant charges on unsubstantiated allegations of corrupt actions on the part of Government functionaries were no help either: And all had axes to grind and agendas inimical to national interests.
All the while the PSC and other organisations, including heads of foreign missions, rather than acting as ameliorative intermediaries, kept stoking the fires of dissent in the nation by encouraging the joint Opposition destructive rhetoric and actions.
Allegations of corruption could have been investigated by the PSC, because the Government always provided audited accounts. Responsible bodies could have broken impasses by intervening in the nation’s business – not by sitting on fences and playing one opponent against the other; but through constructive engagements where they displayed some degree of wisdom in determining the persons and political opportunists who were derailing national development and calling them out on their real intentions, which are clear to the wise and discerning.
However, it is as if they have a ‘death wish,’ because they encouraged the AFC to facilitate the games of the PNC (APNU is just a guise), to the detriment of national development in their various strategies and ploys to remove the PPP/C Government from office; which included the AFC’s no-confidence motion that was meant to immediately truncate the Donald Ramotar administration while simultaneously bring the 10th Parliament to an abrupt halt.
They are aware of the character of all the leaders of the Opposition; as well as their managerial abilities – or lack thereof, and they yet have no concern that if their brinkmanship efforts prevail and the joint Opposition manage to re-install the PNC in office, Guyana would once again be plunged into the abyss; because this would be the ultimate outcome. Everyone is aware that the AFC cannot win an election in Guyana and are mere facilitators and abettors to the PNC power-seeking, self-aggrandizement ploys.
The AFC kept beating the drum of a no-confidence motion, long before they signalled their actual intention of subverting the nation’s business and killing the 10th Parliament with immediate effect; so why didn’t the PSC act judiciously to prevent the joint Opposition from taking this destructive step, which forced the Government to prorogue and thus keep alive the people’s business that were due for consideration by the National Assembly?
If the Donald Ramotar administration had been dismantled through passage of the no-confidence motion then what would have happened to all the projects and programmes, as well as the various existential mechanisms for both the citizenry and the entrepreneurial world to survive in Guyana?
From the inception of his governance President Donald Ramotar has been reaching out a friendly hand to all stakeholders in the nation, and that hand has been bitten by the Opposition ‘dogs of war’ recurrently, with bodies like the PSC gleefully looking on without even offering the President a balm; thus this call by the PSC that is meant to take the current administration straight into the bulldog’s slavering, diseased jaws is too little too late.