Joint opposition displays abject inhumanity
– With indiscriminate budget cuts to people-centric developmental programmes
– Minister Edghill says “this will haunt you”
ONE wonders how they can calmly destroy people’s lives and livelihoods, and retract national development, especially where vulnerable communities are most benefited, then return to their air-conditioned homes  in their air-conditioned vehicles where all the modern amenities providing every comfort awaits them, as do their well-fed, well-provided children. Then they sit down to a table laden with all the luxury food that the average Guyanese can only dream of.  This is after they have taken away even hope of a bright future from the hundreds of mostly poor Guyanese working in the various sections of the public service.
Yesterday, the madness and lack of reason of the joint opposition reached zenith with their continued budgetary cuts to vital sectors of the country’s administrative construct, effectively wiping out entities such as CANU, the Ethnic Relations Commission, State Planning Secretariat and, most poignant of all, the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
This last cut generated collective disgust in the media corps, as, more than anyone else, the vulnerable first peoples of this nation would be severely affected in so many ways that are uncountable.
AFC’s Khemraj Ramjattan’s expressed reason for voting down the Ethnic Relations Commission, which plays such a vital role in cementing race relations in Guyana, was that Bishop Juan Edghill joined the ranks of the PPP after resigning as Chairman of the ERC, which breaches the impartiality clause of the Commission; whereupon Education Minister Priya Manickchand retorted that, by the same token, former Commissioner of Police Winston Felix, who joined the APNU subsequent to retiring from his post, could also be accused of partiality during the time he occupied a highly sensitive position of power that demanded the highest levels of impartiality and professionalism  – and one can recall a highly incriminating telephone conversation allegedly conducted by Felix, during his tenure in office, with the then chairman of the PNC, whereby the latter was thanking Felix for deflecting attention away from them with relation to an incident in Agricola where several persons were murdered.  This was at a time when there was a severe crime wave in the country.
The earnest entreaties of the government ministers for the combined opposition to re-consider their proposals for budgetary cuts that would cripple the government in its drive to continue on the development path so ably crafted and charted by successive presidents and finance ministers of the PPP/C administration since 1993 fell on deaf ears, hard hearts, and dead consciences.
The glee and derision with which the opposition collective rejected the earnest pleas of the sector heads of the government to resist the power-play and instead think about the good of the people who gave them the mandate to work in their interest bespoke the callousness of persons who crafted and effected an X-13 Plan, a “slo’fiah, mo’ fiah” strategy, a Buxton resistance, the murder of innocent persons, even babies lying asleep in their beds.  There was absolutely no remorse for the dislocation of lives and livelihoods that would ensure from their cruel, reckless and irresponsible behaviour.  They were trying to outdo each other in their vindictiveness and unreasonableness.
Among the opposition were mothers, persons who sit on human rights, women’s rights, and other people-centric commissions.  What hypocrites!
But it was when APNU’s  MP, Sydney Allicock rose to speak that the buck dropped:  The back benchers on the opposition side of the House had not a clue of what their leaders were doing.  They were blindly following their leaders after having been fed a load of bilge so, thinking they were helping people, they were instead causing irreparable harm that could set back the government’s developmental thrust many notches behind.
The emotional play on the faces of Government MPs ran the gamut from disbelief, anger, impatience, resignation, then finally settled into resigned amusement at the farce being enacted in the House, even as they painstakingly responded to the often puerile questioning of the estimates.
At one point, when the Attorney-General was being grilled by Basil Williams, whose comprehension capabilities seemingly had taken a vacation, with Nandlall having to repeatedly explain in minutiae one factor after another, the Speaker was forced to intercede and metaphorically take him (Williams) by the hand and walk him through his confusion into clearer paths of understanding, which seemed a Herculean task.
Eventually, the super salaries of the range of $35,000 – $45,000 of the fat-cats who, apart from a few presidential advisors, Permanent Secretaries, and top-of-the-line professionals, were the drivers, cleaners, clerks, typists: all of whose employment the opposition wanted to chop with their “tyrannical scissors”.
Cut also were allocations for meals and beverages for overtime workers; and here one wonders at the alacrity that the opposition MPs when they rush for their own meals and snacks during parliamentary breaks.  Maybe these also should be cut.
Their rationale – or lack of same, befuddles the mind.  The subtle sarcasm behind the answers to repeated questions answered time and again were lost; as when Nandlall was asked why the cleaning bill appreciated, to which he responded: “I don’t know: Maybe they had to clean more.” Maybe so, because the filth in the city, managed by PNC stalwart Mayor Hamilton Green, certainly entails much effort at cleaning and exterminating rodents and pests.  And when he was questioned on which store some insignificant item was bought he answered, with the exaggerated patience of the long-suffering that the procurement procedure outlined in the legislation was utilized in the purchase of the item.
And so the painstaking grilling of government officials continued for hours and days on end, with courteous responses and detailed explanations provided; yet, for no apparent reason, the joint opposition, with a morbid fixation on the contracted workers, cut the budgetary allocations to vital sectors without any compassion for the helpless persons they would be disempowering and making impoverished.
Posturing in grand style, Carl  Greenidge pompously (actually, in this regard he bears great resemblance to Moses Nagamootoo and Khemraj Ramjattan, and one could understand their morbid attraction to each other) posed a continuum of questions to the learned Attorney-General, making mistake after mistake in his contentions, such as saying “in the year 2020,” when he probably meant 2011; and here one is forced to remember GPHC CEO Michael Khan being put through the wringer with evil accusations for saying $60 M when, according to him, he had $16 M in his head, which is a purely human and believable mistake, yet no-one went after Greenidge for the plethora of mistakes that he made.
And again one wonders at the madness in allocating CANU the grand sum of $1, when the country is now seeing results in the vital drug fight; and bilateral partnerships have been forged with neighbouring countries, as well as international crime-fighting bodies.  As Minister Rohee said, it is unconscionable.
The legendary patience and tolerance of Prime Minister Sam Hinds has been stretched to its limits; and his trademark smile has latterly seemed forced as he reeled under the impacts of the madness unfolding daily in the National Assembly: but it is the stymieing of the Amaila Falls project that seems to have hit him the hardest, and his appeal, in his inimitable, exquisitely-courteous delivery style, for the opposition not to take the “retrograde and regrettable step” of cutting off the hydro project only seemed to fuel their determination, which they did with absolute glee and satisfaction.
Passionate entreaties from Ministers Ashni Singh, Carolyn Rodriques-Birkett, Anil Nandlall, Leslie Ramsammy, Bishop Edgehill, Clement Rohee, Robert Persaud, Pauline Sukhai and PM Sam Hinds to the opposition to think about the regression their unreasonable budgetary cuts would cause to people countrywide merely fuelled the determination of the joint opposition.  And thousands of people’s livelihoods and living standards were put under immediate threat with the remorseless passage of the Draconian motions brought by the joint opposition before the House.
But it was the former President Bharrat Jagdeo’s pet project, the LCDS, that impacted the most, even on the media corps. The LCDS was chopped in its entirety, with all its negative implications to external partnership funding, the development of hinterland communities, the land titling of Amerindian communities, the hydro project, and myriads of other projects and programmes by way of which government has been enhancing the lives and lifestyles of Guyanese countrywide.  The Amerindian Development Fund, which is an empowering mechanism to give indigenous communities further capabilities in self-determination, self-governance, and the option to create their own developmental charts is now in limbo, as are all hinterland developmental programmes.
Minister Ramsammy made a passionate appeal to save the Cunha Canal for the sake of the East Coast farmers, to no avail.
And one can understand why the joint opposition seems hell-bent on a path that defies commonsense.  The driver of an APNU official gleefully and gloatingly told James Bond when he left the Assembly to take a break that he should hurry back “…because we got to cut, you know.”  So there it is, the reason for the illogical logic of the opposition collective.
As Minister Robert Persaud said, there is no justifiable logic to the madness enacted in the House yesterday: but it is not about logic; but about scoring political points.  That real people have become collateral damage is of no consequence on a joint opposition intent on seeking vengeance for real or perceived slights.