One sincere emanation from me during my daughter’s formative years was always to ignore people’s bad-mouthing of your actions, beliefs, philosophical thoughts, reactions to the rest of society and the world, your aesthetic choices, your vision of life, among other things, because that is the way of life and you have to realistically live with it.

I have urged her from the time of her thought patterns being formed that humans have their hypocritical instincts; they have their fixed ideological preferences and once you are aware of these negative values you will protect yourself by ignoring their criticism of you.

Two potent, graphic examples are compulsory to know. As early as tomorrow, powerful democratic leaders in the West will lecture leaders of developing countries as to the value of democracy while shamelessly ignoring their embrace of Israel, a country that has committed genocide.

The second example is from France. One of the country’s cinematic icons, Gerard Depardieu is being accused of serial sexual molestation, including rape. The French President defends him with the following words: “He makes France look good.” Some 56 top cultural personalities have signed a petition defending Depardieu. These people have their reasons for saying what they have said and I doubt they care about what others say.

This has been a long digression into what I want to say about what I believe politically in Guyana. I believe that the PPP City Council would administer far superior governance to what we have been having over the past 50 years in Georgetown. I am voting for the PPP in the local government election and regional and general elections the next two years. I am absolutely unmoved by what other people think of what I just wrote.

We cannot predict life and intervening factors can show their unwanted presence but this is my firm conviction and I will never be bothered by what others think of how I feel at this moment politically. Another conviction of mine is that I accept my perception that those in the opposition, civil society and the private media that are relentless critics of the PPP government are no moral alternative to the PPP and are in no position to talk about accountability.

I hope the PPP wins the Georgetown City Council in the next election. The Georgetown City Council does not function. Maybe there should be a public debate about fundamentally reshaping the nature of the City Council with a permanent administration by a multi-stakeholder system consisting of political parties, the private sector and other stakeholders.

On the first public working day, January 1, 2024, I went to City Hall. I did not go to collect a calendar. I did not go to secure a document. I went to pay money to a cash-strapped municipality that all high school students know is short of money because the City Hall says so every day.

I went to City Hall to pay rates and taxes that the City Hall desperately needs in order to function. Official opening time is 8:00 hrs. They started at 8:10 hrs. There were 60 persons waiting to give their money to City Hall. Of that number about 45 were senior citizens. One suspects that this is a habit of senior citizens – they go on the opening day.

There was only one cashier. There was complete confusion. No one knew who came first and the line was ill-shaped. Some senior folks were sitting on chairs while others were standing and younger folks came and went in front of them. I went to the City Constabulary office to request some rank to install order. I was told: “Okay, okay.” But no one came.

Now here is the humongous irony. Every employee in those buildings at City Hall are paid from funds earned from rates and taxes, the very funds that 60 persons went to give to City Hall last Tuesday morning. The Georgetown City Council has to be the stupidest or most insane local authority in the entire world not to make arrangements to collect money that citizens were giving them.

So I left. I saw others leaving including a well-known city business woman. I noticed a horribly ugly situation taking place at another section of the building. There is a sign says: “Enquiries.” But that was a depraved deception. At that very window, persons were being served. So if you want to make an enquiry that would take 10 seconds, you had to wait in line for half an hour.

All this was taking place in 2024. And the exact environment at City Hall in 2024 has existed for decades now. The Georgetown City Council does not exist and it is time Guyana dedicates itself to removing it.