Dear Editor,

ALLOW me to first congratulate Mr Bisram Kuppen, People’s Progressive Party Councillor, on his ascension to a councillor’s chair around the Georgetown municipality’s horseshoe table. Allow me to say welcome to Mr Kuppen.Welcome to the capital city of Georgetown, which his party tried to, and almost destroyed; and I want to say to this goodly gentleman that today there is good reason why he is the only PPP Councillor seated around the table after 23 years of his party’s rule.

In a public letter penned by Kuppen dated April 7, 2016, the PPP Councillor made a public call for councillors to initiate discussions on a forensic audit at the Council, claiming the numerous benefits this move would result in. It is a welcome gesture, but as Mr Kuppen went ahead listing all the great things this audit would do for residents, I am compelled to address this councillor.

Given the recent experiences that are still so fresh in our minds, I think I speak for every Georgetown resident in hoping that this councillor intends to earnestly work in the favour of the City and its residents, instead of his party.

It is our hope that Kuppen, unlike the last four PPP Councillors, would abandon the divisive and unproductive instructions handed down by the PPP during his reign.

We might be “hoping in the stars”, because already Mr Kuppen is exhibiting the calculated moves structured by himself and his political leaders. Despite participating in the deliberations being Kuppen’s right as a councillor, he chose to remain mute and unattached, and abstained from voting during the nomination of Mayor and Deputy Mayor, and in identifying members of the Finance Committee.

Already, Mr Kuppen, we, the Georgetown residents, see this as a plan by you and your PPP leaders to make calculated steps in forwarding your political agenda.

Your letter calling for a forensic audit only confirms this assumption; for the simple fact that you refused to voice your concerns around the table, but instead chose to take to the public, making demands suggests this is because you sit on the Council only as the mouthpiece of the PPP.

You have not earned our trust. We cannot believe anything you say, when your party members have done what they did to us and our beautiful City. We can’t believe anything that comes out of a PPP Councillor’s mouth. You say that there has been a loud public cry of corruption against the Council, but it is known that this has been coming from PPP loyalists and party ghost writers.

Kuppen contends that no one should oppose an audit, since everyone seems interested in seeing a revitalised Georgetown. Indeed, we are all for the City’s resurrection, but I refuse to be fooled by you, a political player who, instead of acting according to the best interest of citizens, will take your instructions from a source that has no interest in the wellbeing of this City.

I restate my belief that Kuppen’s only agenda as a Georgetown Councillor is to play the cards of the PPP. Let it be stated again that Georgetown is not a PPP stronghold; the majority of citizens are Afro-Guyanese who got no support from a party that catered only to rich Indo-Guyanese.

The PPP’s last four GT Councils were the worst. They disrespected the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and the councillors; disregarded proper operational procedures, and neglected this City. Their actions escalated with the installation of the uneducated, obnoxious, insolent Carol Sooba by the said PPP party.

They had never put forward any ideas to move this City forward; they never met with citizens and heard their problems; they did nothing but hold the power stable for the PPP under the guidance of their Minister.

They enjoyed cussing out with the chair, his deputy, and other councillors; loved making outbursts that interrupted meetings; and adored staging a walkout. That is why I believe every move made by Mr Kuppen is not a genuine one.

That party has, in my view, constructed a major plot to vilify and besmirch the image and intent of the new Government, which has inherited the Herculean task of dismantling the corrupt matrix created by the PPP.

Almost all of the country’s prime land is ‘gone’; millions and billions of dollars have been made by ministers, their friends and families; the rest of people in the country were left to ‘make it’ the best way they could; and, oh yeah, the police, public servants and others providing services learnt how to survive alright.
Yours faithfully,
AKEEM BENNONS