-Jagdeo says, pushes for more emphasis to be placed on Guyana’s development and the elevation of citizens

THE lack of accentuation regarding the positives in Guyana and the continuous propping up of those griping and pessimistic voices are hindering national consciousness and pride, People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo has emphasised.

He said this during a press conference on Thursday at the party’s headquarters, Freedom House, while responding to a Stabroek News editorial which claimed that there is no cultural policy in existence.

“Every day, it seems as though some people are working to create this national consciousness, and to bring people together, and there are others who are trying to break that asunder,” he said.

He further stated that if there is so much interest by those voices to create national consciousness, then they should call out the perpetrators who are hindering the progress.

Highlighting the positives, Dr. Jagdeo said that there are numerous features that make the people feel proud about being Guyanese.

These include the “visible” changes in the Amerindian communities under the PPP, he said, while pointing to the Low- Carbon Development Strategy (LCDs) and its significant benefits such as the allocation of funds to indigenous villages.
“So far, in two years, they received $10 billion, 242 communities. They’ve done, on their own, over 1,500 projects in their communities,” he said.

He also pointed to the attempts to derail the developments, and even attempts to silence the appraisals by over 200 toshaos, who lauded the initiative.

The Amerindian Act, the Indigenous People’s Commission and land titling are also strides that have bettered Amerindian communities, he highlighted.

While Guyana is one of the countries that upholds human rights, and promotes press freedom, Dr. Jagdeo pointed to the attempts by well-known PPP critics to cast doubt on those facts.

He stated: “Our human rights record can stand up to any country in the world…You look at our law, the Constitution of this country, the ERC…where in any country in this hemisphere, anywhere in the world, that you have a constitutional body that has the powers of sanction over the executive, can prevent a political party from running at an election if they use race or people’s gender, etc., as a divisive campaign?

“Very few countries in the world have five rights commissions built into their Constitution where you have to have two-thirds support to sit on one of those commissions.”

As he continued to highlight the attempts to hinder the efforts to build national consciousness, he asked how could this goal be achieved if the country has influential politicians attempting to use the Guyana-Venezuela controversy to score political mileage.
“No condemnation of it. How do you build pride and a cultural policy and national unity when you try to tear down, every day, all the positives about our country by giving out. I’m not saying don’t give it. It’s your editorial policy, but outlandish outsize space to the naysayers, the people who are negative about our country, they get the bulk of it in newspapers,” he said.

The constant griping and inadequate focus on government interventions that are aimed at providing a better quality of life for all citizens is also obstructing the goal of national pride, the General Secretary highlighted.

“It’s just disruption all the time, never accentuating the positive things about our country that people feel when they get a plot of land and move into a house for the first time, or find a job or something of that sort every day,” he said.