Month: June 2017

DENIED!: Speaker rejects request for public input on fate of Guyana’s sugar industry

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The Parliamentary Committee on Economic Services has been denied the approval of the Speaker of the National Assembly to conduct public forums on the future of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and the sugar industry, following the announcement by Government to downsize it. In a letter dated June 5 and addressed to Clerk of Committees, Letta Barker, House Speaker, Dr Barton Scotland said that a public forum did not seem appropriate for the Committee to undertake. “I, therefore, disallow the request and withhold my consent for the Parliamentary Committee on…

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Meaningless…

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…meetings Every business executive has some basic rules on “meetings,” and one of the first rules is to ask, “What’s this meeting about?” If you aren’t clear about the goals of the meeting, you’ll be wasting your time, and you might as well don’t show up. We don’t know about politicians, but here it is: Prezzie’s rejected the Opposition Leader’s second list of nominees for the GECOM Chair, and now wants a meeting. Is it your Eyewitness, or is it déjà vu? What happened after the meeting following the first…

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Shooting Guyana’s foot…

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…with rice Guyanese were, last week, informed by the head of the RPA in Berbice that less rice was planted this crop, because farmers were losing their shirts over the prices they were getting for paddy. That’s not surprising…and in fact the question that occupied your Eyewitness’s mind was why they’d kept planting at the old rate for so long. After the PNC-led APNU/AFC government let the lucrative Venezuelan market of US$780/tonne slip away when they slipped into office in 2015, what was left for them?? A world market price…

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Vendor to spend 20 years behind bars for murdering sex worker

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Forty-five-year-old Andell Forde of Rahaman’s Park, Houston, Greater Georgetown, was sentenced to 20 years for killing transgender sex worker Nephi Luther, born Noel Luther. The father of six, who had worked as a fish vendor, appeared before Justice Navindra Singh on Tuesday at the High Court, where he pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter. The State contended that around 01:30h on July 22, 2015, near Carmichael and Quamina Streets, Forde confronted and shot Luther who plied his trade in the area. It followed an argument which Luther had…

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An artistic legacy

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Richard Gui Pennington Sharples, better known as R. G. Sharples, was a man of extraordinary ability who demonstrated a wealth of talents.  Alongside his legal career, Sharples is recognised equally for his artistic legacy and his contribution to the development of a ‘local style’ in the history of fine art in Guyana. Sharples was born in Georgetown on May 1, 1906. He was the youngest son of Mary Johanna (née Scott) and John Bradshaw Sharples, the famous architect and builder. He began his early education at the Ursuline Convent and…

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Shafted again…

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…on oil royalties So, finally, we have some details on how we’re to be raped in regard to the oil revenues from ExxonMobil through the ineptitude of Raphael Trotman, who snagged the Natural Resources’ portfolio only because of the “Nassau Accord”. From the word go, your Eyewitness has been emphasising that the only way Guyana would get its fair share of the oil that’ll be pumped out and gone forever is to begin with ROYALTIES.  Royalties come off the TOP; that is, as a percentage of the total revenues garnered…

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Those That Be In Bondage (1917-2017)

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Days of the sahib are over, or should be, now that our land is free of the overlord’s yoke Rajkumari Singh The novel “Those That Be In Bondage: A Tale of Indian Indenture and Sunlit Western Waters” written by A. R. F. Webber was published in 1917, the same year in which the indentureship scheme, that kept “those that be in bondage”, was abolished. So there are two noticeable anniversaries here to commemorate: the centennial end to indentureship and the centennial publication year of the novel. The third celebration (hitherto…

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The History of Parliament at Independence

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The Parliament of Guyana was created by the 1966 Constitution of Guyana. The Guyana Independence Act was passed on May 12, 1966 and came into force May 26, 1966. The First sitting of the National Assembly of the First Parliament of the Guyana Parliament was held May 26, 1966. However, according to parliament.gov.gy, strictly speaking, Guyana’s parliamentary system was not created at Independence. In 1831, the three colonies of Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice were united, and the colony of British Guiana was formed. From the years 1831 to 1928, the…

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The Labouring Population of Guyana (1917-2017)

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Indentureship formally ended in the year 1917. Indian indentureship started in 1838 (May 5 – Indian Arrival Day) while enslaved Africans were being granted emancipation (August 1 – Emancipation Day). The abolition of indentureship came about through sustained struggle on the foreign front and through sustained resistance in the local vanguard. The local resistance was later harnessed into organisations fighting against the exploitation of the labouring population with the intention of securing better wages and working conditions. According to Ashton Chase in his well-documented, well-presented and well-written book, A History…

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Business sense

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Dear Diary, This is Gas Skin. No…no…no! NOT Ram Own Gas Skin. Please, Dear Diary, don’t keep confusing me with that loudmouth. I am the quiet Gas Skin. I just came back from England trying to drum up some foreign Guyanese to invest back home. It was not as exciting as I thought it would have been. I didn’t get to see the Queen – even though I did see the Guards in their snazzy Red Costumes guarding Buckingham Palace. I didn’t bother to bring up with the Guyanese they…

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