The AFC has been caught with its political skirt down and its slip is showing; and it is soiled. For two years they have slept with the enemy and sold its soul for a mess of pottage (borrowing from the Biblical story of Esau and Jacob). After they have just about completely and utterly destroyed any credibility they had with those who supported and pushed them into recognition and government, they are now trying to save face.
About four of the AFC’s executive members sit in the PNC-Coalition cabinet. This includes the Prime Minister; the Minister of Public Security; the Minister of Public Works and; the Minister of Business. They all know of the universal objection to the nonsensical parking meter deal. They know of the illegality of the project. They know who are to benefit from the deal and why. They know that it is a burden on the poor and underpaid Guyanese workers. Yet they allowed a few autocratic, selfish, charlatans, to push forward a PPP-style, crookish, deal and they (the AFC cabinet ministers) said absolutely nothing.
They sat and watched as every process and system was put in place to bring the parking meter to a realization. They heard all the discussions that were taking place to legalize that financial monstrosity. Yet they said absolutely nothing. They waited until all was good and set to formalize and legalize the parking meter deal and then when they can do nothing, or very little, to remedy the situation, they issued a statement in opposition to the deal they allowed to be enacted.
Does the AFC think the Guyanese people are fools? Do they really believe that they could execute such poor administrative judgment and not be punished for it politically? The supporters of the AFC sent them into parliament and then into government to represent the interest of the working-class people of Guyana: not to look after their own interest and for sure not to foster the interest of the PNC (whose people are the beneficiaries of this deal). The AFC kowtowed to the PNC and watched whatever little support they had, erode into oblivion.
Now that the folks are taking to the streets; now that they ire of the masses have been provoked in their cry for justice, in the wake of a dictatorial onslaught, the AFC has crawled out of their political malaise. The United Republican Party (URP) wishes to remind the Guyanese people that the AFC has tied its hands when it went to bed with the PNC. They sold their birthright when the collated with a party that has some very unique and questionable approaches to governance.
The AFC has only one option in the interest of the national good and that is to assert itself in the Collation and do right by the Guyanese people, by returning to their posture of being interested in the things that the ordinary man is interested in. And if the PNC does not want to acquiesce and flex, then the AFC must enact (or threaten to enact) a pull-out of the Cummingsberg Accord. The URP is stating that the country cannot continue to be abused and prostituted by carrier politicians and political cronies who are bent of filling their pockets. The AFC is caught between a rock and a hard place and their true colors are very visible.
The disrespect that leaders of the two major parties have for the Guyanese people is disheartening and sickening. Last week we highlighted that past President Donald Ramotar highlighted the corruption within the Granger-led administration and called for prosecutions, all the while ignoring the fact that corruption was ripe in the PPP and within his government. Yet he never called (neither is now calling), for prosecution for those culpable within his ranks. Now we have this indefensible rhetoric from the First Vice President and Prime Minister of the country, Mr. Moses Nagamootoo.
In a missive in Parliament last week, Mr. Nagamootoo said that the increases that the PPP granted to their ministers, Prime Minister and Presidents, over the last 17-years of their rule, were ““unconscionable and disgraceful”. Let that sink in a while. Let the hypocrisy of that outlandish remark bare sway on your imagination for a moment.
Because the United Republican Party (URP) is concluding – according to Karl Rove in his address to the graduating class at the School of Political Management, George Washington University, July, 2006 – that the PM must think that Guyanese as Asses and not Masses. Firstly, Mr. Nagamootoo was an executive member of the PPP for 15 of those 17 years and would have either suggested the said raises, argued in support of them, or indeed voted for them in parliament, Additionally, nowhere did we see or hear Mr. Nagamootoo decry the “unconscionable and disgraceful” increases when he was jostling to lead the corrupt PPP and hence continue to benefit from the said ‘despicable’ increases. How does he now say that the increases are so egregious when he was a beneficiary of ALL those increases?
So let’s say that the reason he left the PPP was because of those kinds of crookish, “unconscionable and disgraceful” acts. Let’s argue that Mr. Nagamootoo’s conscience could stomach no more of that kind of despicable behaviours and that that is one of the reasons he parted company with the PPP. (Of course we all know that the reason he left the PPP is because he did not and could never have gotten the Presidential top-spot in the party). But for argument sake, let’s say he left on the grounds that the party had moved away from the honest, transparent, ideals of Dr. Jagan.
Now Mr. Nagamootoo is with the Granger-led Coalition. He has a fresh start to do right by the country. He is now the 2 nd in command – 1 st Vice President and Prime Minister. If Mr. Nagamootoo is so aggrieved by the years of “unconscionable and disgraceful” increases and if he thinks they were criminal, then can the PM please tell the Guyanese people, why he never sought to publically correct the PPP’s financial injustices perpetrated upon the Guyanese tax payers? After all, the Commingsberg Accord, allows him the latitude to do, or undo, anything he (or his ever dying AFC party), thinks is in the interest of the Guyanese citizenry.
Finally. Why did he support and vote for a doubling of the salaries of all the Ministers, including his salary and that of the President? If indeed, Jagdeo and his PPP clan were “unconscionable and disgraceful” in substantially increasing their salaries, how then can Mr. Nagamootoo support a doubling of those already bloated salaries?
The PM thinks that the Guyanese are Asses: that he can tell us anything and we will believe it. Mr. Nagamootoo honestly feels that he can tell us whatever he thinks will fools us into believing the PNC-Coalition (PNC-C) is different from the PPP/Civic. Well, those days of misinforming and tricking the blinded, naive, Guyanese Masses are slowly drawing to an end. The Guyanese public is waking up and the handwriting of a new day is on the wall.
The PPP/C has irrevocably damaged the Guyanese psyche. The PNC was the first to lead us down that track of political brokenness. Now the PNC-C is back to continue its game of political misinformation and administrative propaganda. We know that these career politicians, from the two major parties, cannot help themselves. A leper cannot change his spots. However, those tactics are getting old. The Guyanese people are wising up. The clock of change is ticking. The Masses are no longer appreciative of being treated as Asses. 2020 will be an interesting year.