FORMER Speaker of the House Ralph Ramkarran says the promises made by the Administration to the nation must be at the forefront of Cabinet’s agenda during the current ‘honeymoon’ period which is almost over.Prior to emerging victorious at the May 11 polls, the resurgent APNU+AFC coalition had promised to implement a range of measures in the first 100 days on assuming office.

Among the measures are the reduction of the Berbice Bridge toll; significant salary increases for Government workers; significant increases in Old Age Pension; reduction of the President’s Pension and other benefits; establishment of passport and birth certificate licensing offices in Berbice, Essequibo and Linden; return of television station to Linden; waiving of duties on fuel, foods and small mining equipment bought by identifiable miners of small concessions; and the establishment of a Public Procurement Commission.
Ramkarran, in an earlier interview with the Guyana Chronicle, had said that realistically speaking, it will be a challenge for the APNU+AFC Government to achieve all it said it will do in the first 100 days in office, but it should strive to achieve as much as it can within that timeframe.
NAGAMOOTOO IN CENTRAL ROLE
Writing in his weekly blog, ‘Conversation Tree’ last Saturday, the former Speaker suggested that Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo play a central role in the implementation of the 100-day plan.
“I would therefore recommend that the Prime Minister be placed in charge of managing the fulfilment of the 100-day programme, and that the Prime Minister chairs that portion of Cabinet meetings. Therefore, at one and the same time, he would be chairing at least part of the Cabinet meetings and be responsible for at least part of the domestic agenda. The Prime Minister would then be able to deny that the AFC had (fully) capitulated on the Cummingsburg Accord and claim that it is being implemented with the adjustments necessary to make it workable in circumstances of holding office,” he said.
FORMER PRESIDENTS BENEFITS
The Administration has already capped the benefits of former Presidents, which, as the then Opposition, it had deemed a “burden on the Treasury”.
Work has also begun on the fulfilment of the other benefits. The former People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Executive had said that during the elections campaign, the APNU+AFC spoke about the cancer of corruption, and the need for it to be rooted out.
This, he said, is one of the things many Guyanese want to see the new Government do, and at least, in the first 100 days in office, it should take tangible steps towards addressing this scourge.
Ramkarran was forced to resign from the PPP/C after he was hauled over the coals for penning an article on corruption.
Apart from aggressively tackling corruption, including revisiting alleged ‘cozy deals’, the former Speaker had said that putting systems in place to steady the rice and sugar industries and the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission should also happen in the first 100 days of the new Administration.
AUDITS
To the Administration’s credit, it has already begun the audit of several State agencies, and has since removed the Board of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo). The Corporation is now being managed by an interim Board, and an inquiry into the operations of GuySuCo is expected to commence soon.
The Government has also been grappling to steady the rice industry, following Venezuela’s renewed claim of the Essequibo and this country’s Atlantic front. Guyana exports 34 per cent of the 600,000 tonnes of rice it produces annually to neighbouring Venezuela at premium price.
Delivering on the promises it made, Ramkarran said, will put the Administration in good stead at the time of judgement.
“The Government has a plan against which a judgment will be made. It is called the hundred-day programme. Little is heard of it nowadays but we, the people, who are intended to be its beneficiaries, are looking forward anxiously to its fulfilment,” the former Speaker of the House said on Saturday.

By Tajeram Mohabir