Dear Editor,

AFTER approximately 10 years of the PNC-led Coalition holding the majority in Parliament, another PPP/C administration is governing the country with equity and fiscal prudence.

For approximately two decades, post elections of 1992, the PPP/C worked unremittingly to reverse the destruction and devastation visited upon Guyana and Guyanese by the former PNC regime under first Burnham, then Hoyte’s governance, with magnificent success, with socio-economic development in this country poised to catalyse dramatically within the future, from a base laid by the unrelenting efforts of former president, current Vice-President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, who is now aptly referred to as ‘The architect of modern Guyana’. But the gains in the nation reversed toward a downward trend when the government of the newly-elected Donald Ramotar administration found itself in a quandary when the PPP/C lost its parliamentary majority to a vengeful joint opposition in the November 2011 general and regional elections.

The ludicrous irony of persons who had no input into Guyana’s wealth creation, even those who destroyed Guyana and left it a deeply indebted country, arrogating to themselves the right to abrogate that wealth disposition to the nation and drive the workers of the country into joblessness, sent shockwaves rippling throughout the country as the implications of the budgetary cuts slowly sank into the unbelieving minds of the nation.
Even the private sector was distressed because, apart from other constraining factors, they realised that disposable incomes would be severely reduced in many families and government-run institutions, thus hampering purchasing power, with severe, deleterious ripple effects on the business community.

There was no logic to the madness as the opposition wielded its Sword of Damocles on the painstaking work of the Finance Minister, his supporting aides, and the various stakeholders in the nation’s economy.
The stunned disbelief of government MPs was replicated in the faces of even opposition media operatives who could not believe the socio-economic dislocations the opposition collective was prepared to visit upon the nation, merely for vindictive spite, and for showing the then government, in Granger’s own words, “who is boss”.

A stunned Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, covered his face in agonised dismay as the opposition did the unbelievable, cleanly cutting the budget for the government’s flagship in hinterland development, the LCDS, with all the resultant implications. Former Amerindian Affairs, then Foreign Affairs Minister, Carolyn Rodriques-Birkett, sat next to him in solemn anguish as she contemplated the dire consequences of that vindictive budgetary slash to her people, who have always been oppressed by the PNC, in and now out of government.

The Amerindian communities and persons who consequently suffered, with many losing their jobs as a consequence of this irrational budgetary cut, was described as “collateral damage” by Khemraj Ramjattan.
However, this should not have been an unexpected eventuality when the joint opposition determinedly, exulting in its collective power vested through its one-vote/one-seat majority during the earlier sitting, when supplemental financial paper No. 7 was laid in the National Assembly, voted against its passage, thus leaving incomplete the country’s accounting records, which would be recorded as unresolved in the AG’s audit reports for the budget agencies in which the monies had been spent. According to legal and financial experts, this has never before happened in any other part of the world.

So what a relief that the Irfaan Ali-led PPP/C administration could once again conduct the affairs of the nation without hindrance, except for a lot of foul hot air emanating from the opposition benches.

Yours very truly,
Baldeo Mathura