THE incident described below happened. It was told to me by a friend whose family has been lifelong PPP supporters, so it is not a question of a Burnham fan telling a story to make Burnham look good. My friend witnessed this incident with President Burnham because he was in the school’s compound when it happened.
I rather suspect that few people are familiar with some little things Burnham did while he was in power like the situation I am about to describe. And that is because these things have not been written about. The world would not have known that Mr. Burnham had 13 children (all girls), 8 of whom were born out of wedlock, if Burnham’s daughter, Roxanne, did not relay that information to Burnham’s biographer, Professor Linden Lewis (see page 31 of Lewis’s book on Burnham).

President Burnham drove into the compound of President’s College when it was being constructed and asked to see the contractor. When he appeared, Burnham asked him to point to his car. When the contractor did so, Burnham told him to get in and drive out and not to come back. Burnham was incensed because the contractor was months behind the project.
I related this incident because of the 05:30 hrs meeting President Ali had at State House with ministers, Permanent Secretaries, state engineers and private contractors. The confabulation was live-streamed and it showed a very upset President. Writing in his Chronicle column, Leonard Craig said that the question people have is over the format of the meeting, and that is where some comments lie.

But the consensus among Guyanese is that the President had a right to feel frustrated. The view is that things have to be done on time and properly. I refer readers to my last Sunday column in which the former Chilean Ambassador to China wrote in his book that the motto in China is to get things done and fast. In Guyana, such thinking is long overdue.
I believe when you are offered a responsible occupation that carries weight in a country, you have two choices. Tell the person making the offer that you are not suited for the job and you don’t think your output will be up to the standard expected. A man has got to know his limitations.

The other choice is to accept the position and execute the responsibilities that are in the job. Once you fall down, then the blame goes to the person in charge. In Guyana, when state projects are in jeopardy, the first person that the frustration of the public is directed to is the President. He gets blamed for every project failure.
I have seen that myself. I was with my wife last year in the Turkeyen mosque to collect the one-off cash grant for senior citizens. It was complete chaos with more than 200 people at a loss as to what to do. I heard people venting their anger at President Ali. There were all kinds of frustrated feelings and they were directed to the government.

What was sad was that the President had absolutely nothing to do with the terrible arrangement and in his absence, he got some cussing down. It is logical to deduce that the 05:30 hrs encounter had to do with what the President heard on his numerous meet-the-people tours. What he heard must have lacerated his soul. So, he decided enough was enough.
If you take a job that will impact the lives of the nation then you have to perform because your incapacity affects an entire nation. For two and a half years I have done a call-in programme on the Freddie Kissoon Show each Friday evening. The things people complain about break your heart. Many of these things should not happen and the President gets the blame.

We need to remind the nation that the President presides over a Cabinet where he has 24 persons plus him that administer Guyana. It is obvious, that he must have said to himself, why are they blaming me when I have 24 ministers to perform government’s tasks? I think all Guyanese who saw that encounter would agree that people who accept responsible employment have to do their jobs.

I know what I see in this country and I could understand how the President felt. All Guyanese should read what that Chilean diplomat had to say about how China is being administered. He wrote that China simply does not accept late projects or lingering projects. Is there any confusion in anyone’s mind as to why China is now a superpower? Why in Guyana it takes years to get things done? Can President Ali change that mentality? I think he intends to.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.