Dear Editor,
PLEASE allow me space in your newspaper to respond to an article that was carried in Kaieteur News, dated 24th January, 2019, under the headline “Against all odds…PPP Gov’t will reopen sugar estates—Jagdeo.”

We all know by now that Bharrat Jagdeo is good at making false promises and, moreover, to ensure he has his way in everything. Well, after his handpicked presidential candidate a few days ago announced that under his watch as president of Guyana, he will create some 50,000 new jobs, which is another false promise to the nation and have some US$500 billion being invested in Guyana, which the Hon. Dominic Gaskin, Minister of Business, said is a brag by Ali.

The minister went on to educate this PPP presidential candidate, who allegedly faked his qualifications by having some degrees and certificates, that “For the current year, GO-Invest alone is projecting to aid investments valued at some US$300-$400M; and the projections do not include investments in the mining or in the petroleum sectors, or in the retail and commercial sectors which don’t benefit from investment incentives.”

The Hon. Gaskin went further and educated this so-called point man on finance for the opposition “So this plan or programme that Mr Ali is promoting is not unusually ambitious; and he may wish to revise his figures upwards if he is seeking to compete with the coalition government on its track record on investment.”
Ali also said that oil benefits will be realised within a year of the PPP in office. But yet his bossman, Bharrat Jagdeo, told Guyanese that the country will start benefitting from oil revenues sometime between 2020 and 2025.

Ali said that if the PPP is in government, he will create 50,000 new jobs for Guyanese. Well, Mr Ali needs to restudy the PPP when they were in government, because from 2000-2015 the PPP created less than 5,000 jobs for Guyanese in 15 years. That is why we saw many leaving the shores of Guyana for elsewhere in the Caribbean or the US.
So, the dream of creating 50,000 new jobs is another falsehood that is being promised by the PPP. I know that the PPP, if they are in government, would use our tax dollars to create jobs for the youths that will once again be used as political weapons in doing the politics and propaganda work for the PPP. This was very evident in the hinterland and also here on the coast.

So Guyanese, we all need to see the lies and deception in the politics of the PPP. They will lie and lie and lie in ensuring that they regain government. But it means that they will have to keep lying for a long time, because the people of this country understand what’s taking place and why it is taking place. The people of this country have full confidence in this democratically elected government.
To deal with the fiction and dreams of Bharrat Jagdeo, we need to understand that when this former president think about the oil and its revenues, his brains start to work fast and he says whatever comes out of his mouth, by the way, which most of the times are racism and false promises.

Bharrat Jagdeo is out again to fool the sugar workers who are mostly Indians and especially the ones in Berbice. How can this man re-open the estates when over the past decade or so, the IMF told him that the estates need to resize and the EU told him that they won’t be granting monies in future for the industry, because sugar is taking a negative impact\turn for the worst?

But instead of listening to those international agencies, he took US$200 billion and invested it in a factory that he says will be a modernisation plan in turning the industry around for the better. Well, he did turn it around, but not spinning, it’s upside down. This man needs to tell the workers the truth about the industry. He needs to tell them about the estates he closed down during his time as president and why he had to do it. He also needs to tell the workers that he and the PPP had the same plan in mind that the APNU+AFC did with the industry and that’s downsizing.

Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP could not have told the workers that in 2015, because they would have lost a lot more votes from the sugar workers and their families, over which he and the PPP claim to have control and transport.
This entire announcement by Bharrat Jagdeo is a falsehood and the aim is to fool the sugar workers and their families, so as to get their votes at the upcoming polls. So, all the falsehoods and lying tactics will be used by the PPP and Bharrat, as what they have been doing all along since the death of Dr Jagan.

Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP need to come clean and tell the working-class people of Berbice and Guyana at large, especially the sugar workers, why is it after winning the 1992 general and regional elections, they abandoned them and stopped the May Day Rally in Berbice?. Why they took away the API from the workers?. Why they never tried to do the right thing for the sugar industry and how much they are using them?.
I can go on and on with questions to which the PPP and its leader would never give true answers . All they will do is “beat around the bush” and cast blame, so that the workers can be fooled.

Why is it that the PPP doesn’t want to respond to the truthful and valid questions the citizens of this country have been asking them over the years in the print media? I will give the reason\s and I know I will be highly criticised for this, but I do not have any intention at all to downplay, degrade or belittle anyone.

Brothers and sisters, the reason for the PPP not wanting to respond to questions via the print media is clear. Many of us as Guyanese, especially my Indo brothers and sisters in Berbice, do not like to read, especially the newspapers. We tend to listen more to television, radio and meetings and draw our conclusions thereon.

That is why the PPP is having press conference after press conference and television programmes 24/7, because they know that we in Berbice tend to believe what we hear because we hardly read or don’t read the newspapers or materials that will educate us.
So, they are using the form of talking to you and fooling you, then you will believe what they have to say and fall for their crap. That’s what’s happening here in Berbice. We need to ask the PPP and Bharrat some serious questions with that reckless statement that he made about reopening the industry.

Berbicians, especially my brothers and sisters in the sugar industry, don’t fall for the fake and false promises that the PPP is putting to you. I can say and clearly state that the reason for those fake and false promises is because the PPP wants power at all cost. They will fool all who have to be fooled and then leave them by washing their hands from them.
Let’s all remember that in 1992, Dr Jagan promised Berbicians a new airport, because too many Berbicians have to go a long way in getting to the airport. In the PPP’s 23 years, did they fulfil that promise?.

The PPP gave us a bridge, by the way, which is good, but yet fool us and put into the agreement that the bridge company can raise the tolls year after year. So let us not fall for the promises of the PPP. They are all empty promises being made by a one-man dictatorship political party; yes, that’s the PPP. Let us reject the trickery of Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP and most of all, let’s reject the entire PPP.

Regards
Abel Seetaram