The PNC has done so many wrongs to our beautiful country, shattered the dreams of many ordinary Guyanese families, doomed our country, making it the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, earning the infamy of being one of the most indebted countries on earth by 1990, destroying our major economic planks such as SUGAR, Rice and Bauxite before 1990. Given a second chance in 2015, they resumed that pathway, and were it not for the No-Confidence Motion and the unity among our people, they would have once again return Guyana to that disastrous path. They earned the reputation before 1990 as one of the most corrupt regimes in the world, as master-riggers of elections. That same pathway they tried to reenact between 2015 and 2020.
They never acknowledged these wrong-doings. They never apologized. Instead, they often have doubled-down on their failed policies and their incompetence.
I remembered the Vice President, Bharat Jagdeo, showing up at an event wearing a green shirt. Someone remarked that he was wearing a “PNC” shirt. The VP immediately retorted that just because his shirt is green does not mean he has a “PNC” shirt. The rebranding exercise the PNC-led APNU/AFC embarked on between 2015 and 2020 forced ordinary people to do something green – such as painting their homes green, or their fence green or their bridges green. Some repainted vehicles green. This was at a time when all public buildings were turned into green buildings, when public servants were forced to show allegiance by wearing something green. The VP reminded the person that no political party owns a color. They could brand themselves through a color, but that does not give any political party ownership of a color.
It is never too late to expect miracles. The leader of the opposition, Aubrey Norton, this week confessed that the move by the PNC-led APNU/AFC to repaint State House and public buildings green, the PNC color, was a mistake. Responding to the media, he admitted that the repainting of public buildings and the campaign to coerce the public into following suit and repaint their homes and vehicles green was inappropriate. When the David Granger-led APNU/AFC assumed office in 2015, at a time when they claimed the country was “bankrupt”, they had money to begin the rebranding of Guyana green, the PNC color.
In 2015, the PPP and other groups in Guyana rejected the rebranding of Guyana. It has taken some time, but it is good to see Aubrey Norton recognizing and acknowledging the stupidity and the recklessness of that crazy obsession by the PNC. It is good to see that Norton was able to bring himself to confess that the PNC-led APNU/AFC did wrong and wasted valuable resources and valuable time for something that benefited no a single child, not a single Guyanese. There were schools and health centers without functioning wash rooms, which the PNC-led APNU/AFC claimed they could not afford to rehabilitate or reconstruct or repair. But they had money to repaint some of these buildings.
The confession by Norton that they did wrong when it comes to linking their party chosen color to public buildings is totally out of character. It is not in their DNA to admit their wrong-doings. We commend the PNC leader for taking responsibility for a wrong they did to this nation. Note that while admitting they were wrong, he did not apologize. But thank god for small mercies.
Having made this small move to acknowledge a wrong, this is a good time for the leader of the opposition to show leadership and adopt the commendable posture of acknowledging the many wrongs they have done, taking ownership and responsibility for spiraling Guyana down the abyss of sufferings and agony. I know that this might be impossible for him because the DNA of the PNC will not permit him to go down that road.
It is a good road to go down. If he has any chance of better political outcomes, his party need to acknowledge their many wrongs. The starting point must be taking responsibility for Election 2020 rigging fiasco. For five months the PNC led a brazen attempt to thief the elections of 2020. Worst, they tried doing it in plain sight of the while world. The former Jamaican Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, described the effort as the most transparent attempt ever to thief an election. Many persons, including leading members of the PNC, and some of their conspirators within GECOM, are before the courts charged with criminal acts committed during the five-month election-rigging siege.
Of course, the attempted theft of Election 2020 was not the PNC’s first time at rigging elections. Since Election 1968, followed by Election 1973, Election 1980, Election 1985 and Referendum 1978, the PNC have been known as world champions at thieving elections. Not only have they been guilty of rigging, but they have been known for the clumsiness and the brazenness of their thefts.
Aubrey Norton would do well to call President Irfaan Ali, acknowledge the crime of election-rigging in Election 2020 and apologize to the nation for the history of election rigging in Guyana. I will not hold my breath, but I could still dream that one day, sooner than later, Norton or some other leader of the PNC would acknowledge that the PNC was wrong in the abrogation of the most fundamental rights of citizens, denying them the right to vote and their votes being counted.
IN 2015, one of their first acts in government was to take away several entitlements that people had come to cherish. The Because We Care Grant of $10,000 per child, the water and electricity subsidies for pensioners, the mortgage support for first time home owners, etc. were all removed in Budget 2015. From Budget 2015 and further in Budget 2016, the PNC introduced new VAT payments for education, water, internet and data services, medicines and health supplements. These egregious acts punishing ordinary citizens while increasing their own salaries and benefits would never be forgotten by the Guyanese people, including their own supporters. Norton should consider these acts and apologize to the people. Instead, they are playing deaf and dumb as they now claim that if given another chance they will give people much more than these.
Norton was on the campaign trail in 2015 when the PNC-led coalition promised families that UG fees would be eliminated within the first 100-days in government. They ended up never keeping their promise, but, on the contrary, they increased by almost 100% the fees at UG. They are making this promise again, at a time when the PPP has already started the process of making university free in Guyana. In fact, long before Election 2025, UG will be free for children in Guyana. Not only will UG be free, but the PPP Government has already distributed more than 20,000 scholarships for tertiary education. In 2015, they had promised to expand the PPP-then scholarship programs. Instead, they dismantled the program and, other than a few Ministers and their families, Guyanese children were deprived of scholarships. Several schools that were under construction in 2015 were still under construction in 2020 and only completed recently by the PPP. Do you think Norton and the PNC will apologize for this assault on the education system?
Do you think Norton and the PNC will apologize to the sugar workers and to the Guyanese people for the brutal assault on sugar workers? They had promised sugar workers 20% annual wage increases. They had promised to expand SUGAR, and not close any estate. They had promised the sugar workers and public servants massive pay increases, not over time, but within the first 100 days in government. They did increase their own salaries by as much as 100%, but sugar workers’ wages were frozen, estates were closed and workers severance were not paid until the courts intervened. Public servants were told their time will come and they must be patient. Teachers even went on strike and were brutally sent back their victimization and threats without ever getting any compensations. People have not forgotten.
Do you think they will apologize to the Amerindians for essentially aborting the Amerindian land Titling exercise? The PPP had rapidly completed demarcation and given titles for several dozen Amerindian villages. The PPP left more than $US10M in funding for this exercise. David Granger personally took leadership in aborting this exercise by appointing a Land Commission to look into claims by other ethnic groups for land. It was a pretext in which he placed the call for “ancestral” land to take precedent over Amerindian Land claims which were guaranteed by law and under the Independence Declaration that Forbes Burnham signed with the British Government in 1966. The assault on Amerindians were not restricted to titling, they also aborted the Amerindian Development Fund which was guaranteed under the Norway Carbon sale Agreement. They also terminated contracts for more than 2,000 young Amerindian CSOs.
They think we might have forgotten what the Public Procurement Commission’s declaration that the various feasibility contracts for designing the Demerara River bridge ranks among the most corrupt deals ever. They think we have forgotten the Ministry of Health’s warehouse contract which rented a house for almost $15M per month and ended up storing some expired medicines, some condoms and some old equipment that were really garbage waiting to be dumped. They think we have forgotten the $605M worth of medicines they bought which should have cost about $96 M.
They think we have forgotten the $US18MEXXON bonus which they hid; the one-sided EXXON deal; the $30B loan for GUYSUCO which GUYSUCO barely benefitted from; the seizure of more than 4,600 acres of land from GUYSUCO; the arbitrary allocation of prime properties to themselves.
By 1990, Guyana was ranked as among the worst of the HIPCs (Highly-Indebted Poor Countries). Our external debt was more than $US2.1B, several times bigger than the total GDP of the country at the time. Our debt-servicing annually were 153% our total income; life expectancy which had reached 61 by 1964 was on the verge of falling below 60 in 1990. More than 2,500 children under 5 years old were dying annually. We had become a squatter-country with people putting up shanty-towns everywhere.
The time to apologize is now. The time to admit wrongs is now. But we should be wise – do not hold your breath. We must resolve that in 2025 we will give the PNC another reason why they should seriously consider an open apology to the Guyanese people.