Dear Editor,
INCONGRUITY has become endemic among Guyana’s talking heads; from ‘tik tak’ performer/ Kaieteur News Publisher Glen Lall to the recycled men now grouped under Article 13 and the PNC’s newly- reformed Leader, Aubrey Norton. There is the commonality of lacking logical flow to arguments, pleas, and statements. A few instances are particularly irksome.

The ‘tik tak’ star/publisher Glen Lall’s irresponsibility has cost his newspaper dearly as he continues to lose libel cases to Winston Brassington. This has not deterred Lall from making even wilder assertions on the Tik Tok social media platform. Lall recently organised a protest to pressure the Guyana government to renegotiate the ‘oil deal’ to get a better deal for all Guyanese, however, incongruously, Glen Lall is also against spending a cent of the ‘oil money’ under the NRF Act. How the benefits would then accrue to all Guyanese using Glen’s logic is an unsolvable mystery.

The men of Article 13 want to be consulted on how everything should be done in Guyana, incongruously, the men of Article 13 refuse to face the electorate to acquire that mandate. Forming an association does not translate into a ‘right’ to speak for the masses. I look forward to Article 13 making an effort to gain legitimacy and mandate from the electorate and not the Deeds Registry. I also venture that the men of Article 13 save and except Christopher Ram (who asks for audits of everything #Ram&McRae) would have great difficulty agreeing upon anything among themselves and cannot be considered ‘decision makers’ much less without a democratically acquired mandate.

The PNC’s new leader, Aubrey Norton, had a presser to call for a ‘people-centred budget 2022’ and asked that the vulnerable in our society be given special consideration and that the budget process be reformed to allow input from the main opposition parties. I applaud his awakening to the plight of those who do not receive monies via money transfer services but must point out the incongruity of his call to assist the vulnerable and his vexed/aggressive stance against cash grants to schoolchildren and pensioners, not to mention assistance to farmers hurt by recent floods.

Aubrey Norton must surely know that budgets are prepared by governments, ministers set policy, projects, and programmes and the civil service technocrats work out the cost of delivery. The Granger administration’s 1.2 trillion may have been set by Congress Place but that is not how the Irfaan Ali administration functions.

The incongruity of a PNC leader who pontificates one thing during the ‘rumshop gaffs’ in Bam Bam Alley and contradicts himself at Congress Place is only surpassed by the mathematical disability of Glen Lall and the righteous arrogance of the self-appointed men of Article 13. There is a place for consultation in building Irfaan Ali’s One Guyana but it must be with those who possess intellect, logic, and vision and certainly cannot include these selfish, self-centred, self-appointed, egotistic men incapable of making logical arguments. I suggest they ‘humble’ themselves and come again.

Yours sincerely,
Robin Singh