AS felicitations poured in for President David Granger, someone I know sent him a sympathy card. The man, a citizen of Guyana and almost touching his eighty’s, thought that the task ahead for the President and his team is so grave that he could not congratulate the President, but sympathise with him. 

At first, I thought that the man was being insensitive and I told him so. He then justified his action satisfactorily to me, at which I thought that his eons on earth did bless him with great insights. While the cerebral dinosaur did not tell me the details of his letter, I figured it out for myself.
The President may need our sympathy in dealing with a plethora of issues, some of which are yet to be revealed. Improving the education system comes easily to mind. President’s College (PC) and the University of Guyana are two institutions that must be given immediate attention. Once the pride of Guyana, PC’s compound is now cow pasture and its rounded curriculum has been abandoned. UG, our highest institution of learning, is strapped for resources and seems to be neglected in other ways.
While His Excellency has declared war against the four apocalyptic horsemen of Guyana – crime, disease, ignorance, and poverty — he still has to find strategies to deal with the four pythons of the economy – corruption, bribery, nepotism, and unprofessionalism. They have become so blended in daily dealing that the Office of the Presidency would have to become Scotland Yard to deal with them. One of the manifestations of nepotism is many square pegs in round holes and some people who perform tasks out of duty, and not out of a desire to serve.
In dealing with the level of crime and unsolved murders, the President will need a great deal of sympathy. Crum-Ewing, Ronald Waddell, ‘Sash’ Sawh, George Bacchus, Yohance Douglas, and Monica Reece, come to mind. In a system where files go missing and cases become cold, it will take FBI-like audacity to re-open, pursue and achieve some success in meting out justice.
Then there is the prevailing lawlessness in the society – minibus lawlessness, littering, loud, lewd music on the streets and in public transportation, indecent language that has become second nature to children and young people – a sort of a cuss-out culture. If the immediate impact of the President’s leading in cleaning the city is any indication of things to come, then we should be seeing a decrease in lawlessness in the short term.
Unemployment has become a scourge in Guyana. One of the obvious effects is the level of crime and the number of young people liming in vulnerable neighbourhoods during working hours. Unemployed youths are more likely to be involved in criminal activities than those who are employed. The public sector cannot absorb the thousands of unskilled, skilled, qualified and unqualified young people living in the unemployment street for many years. More manufacturing enterprises will have to be established and greater emphasis placed on small business development and management as a means of helping youths with employment. The President needs our greatest sympathy in changing the tide of unemployment beating against young people.
Many persons will agree that the astronomical cost that ordinary working-class Guyanese had to pay for a little piece of land is far beyond unconscionable. The sum of $1.5 million dollars for a houselot from a person working for $80,000 dollars a month and then having to build a home at a base cost of $5 million dollars, is to say the least, dastardly. In dealing with this issue, the President will need no sympathy. The new administration has already signaled its intention of reducing the cost for a houselot.
However, in dealing with the rise in racism, His Excellency will need all our sympathy. The sleeping cobra has shown its poisonous fangs at the intentional probing of key individuals during the 2015 election campaigning. We hope that the unity and mutual respect demonstrated by President Granger and Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo symbolise the beginning of lasting healing.
The President will certainly need our sympathy in touching the disease of victimisation. While he is maintaining that people of non-APNU/AFC persuasion should not be afraid of losing their Government jobs as long as they perform well, and rightly so, how will he ensure that the long list of those who have been victimised during the past two decades be redressed?
Domestic abuse and suicide have become like staple diets in this country. Guyana is already the suicide capital of the world. The President and team will need more than sympathy in dealing with domestic abuse and suicide.
In the arena of youth development, a big sympathy to the powers that be. A large percentage of our youthful population is like a rudderless ship driven in rough seas. Will national service be revived to help reduce the number of misdirected youths on the streets? Will a youth policy provide a rudder? Along with the need for youth development, there is the problem of illiteracy and school drop-outs. The high school drop-out rate is alarming and must be addressed swiftly, specifically, and systemically.
Finally, the President has the Herculean task of reversing the economic strangulation of Linden, ending the madness of the East Coast and East Bank Never Ending, Resources Squandering Expansion Road Projects, and conquering the bleeder of the economy, the Guyana Sugar Corporation. The greatest of the three challenges will be the behemoth GuySuCo. I join with my owlish friend and offer not only my sympathy, but a helping hand.

LENNOX CORNETTE
Communications Specialist