…against crime
Somehow, crime-fighting Ramjattan’s innovations haven’t gotten enough attention on the campaign trail – even though crime reduction remains right up there on every single citizen-as-voter’s bucket list. Ramjattan’s baby was the “2am bar curfew”. It’s said this came out of his personal experience as a bar hopper – along with Moses Nagamootoo – with decades of practice under his (slackened) belt!! Was regularly mugged as he crawled his way home in the wee hours of the morning?!!
Then there were his suggestions to supplement the reach of the police force (and its visibility) by introducing (at one end of the scale) more horses and dogs and (on the other) drones. The horses didn’t make much of an impact in GTown and the last we heard of them was they were deployed (banished?) in Black Bush Polder! Silence reigned on the canine front! On the drones (actually “drone”, singular at this point) since that pic with Ramjattan and Basil Williams looking intently at the sample of one of the $36 million babies, we haven’t heard anything. They were supposed to expand the surveillance of guns and drugs crossing our southern and western borders.
But in the APNU/AFC’s manifesto-that-is-not-a-manifesto, your eagle-eyed Eyewitness did espy this titbit that promised: “Drones in crops and interior medicine: – Increase the use of drones in health-care delivery for access and rapid responses in remote areas.” Increase?? Is the PNC telling us that they’ve already been using the drones to deliver drugs, etc, to remote interior villages?? Wow!! This is in the experimental stage in the US and they still haven’t worked out the kinks in an urban environment. And here we are sending sensitive medical stuff over jungles, rivers and mountains!! We better start exporting this breakthrough to the First World!!
But your Eyewitness was impressed when the PPP/C’s Prime Minister Candidate, Brig (rtd) Mark Phillips mentioned his party’s take on our security conundrum. First of all, without any flourish, he demolished Granger’s pretentions of being a “security expert”! Phillips simply reminded his audience at Bath of a fact that most have overlooked: Granger’s been out of active duty for over THIRTY YEARS!! And as a historian, has been consumed with looking BACKWARDS! He hasn’t a clue about modern security matters!!
Phillips, on the other hand – never the “book” officer Granger was – has just come off active duty. He was one of the security officials insisting that our borders needed to be monitored to staunch the flow of guns and drugs into our country.
On the local crime front, his insistence on “intelligence-led policing” suggests from the word “go”, the PPP’s gonna be more effective than the PNC!!
“Intelligence” was always foreign to them!!
…being rewarded?
It’s clear that the “Nassau Accord” is much stronger than the “Cummingsburg Accord”. Here it is, Ramjattan’s done everything asked of him – being the PNC’s doormat – yet the Cummingsburg Accord has delivered no security to either his position or his tenure!! Yet the Nassau Accord, hammered out between Granger and Trotman, has withstood “oilgate”!!
Trotman was invited to the head-table when the “new” Cummingsburg set-up launched the PNC’s manifesto-that-is-not-a-manifesto. Why?? Hadn’t he brought a tsunami of domestic and international humiliation on the coalition in its bid to secure a second term by arranging for Guyana to lose US$55 billion in oil revenues??!! What was Trotman’s official locus standi?? He’s Chairman of the AFC? But PNC’s Chairman Volda Lawrence wasn’t at the head table!!
The answer, Dear Reader, is that it’s payback time for Trotman who played Ramjattan like a fiddle to form the AFC back in 2006 (when the Nassau Accord was reached) and wean away enough votes from the PPP.
To slide the PNC into office!
…for Minister wuk
Even though your Eyewitness scoured the PNC’s manifesto-that-is-not-a-manifesto with the proverbial “fine teeth comb”, he was unable to find any mention that Granger will legalise his expansion of his Cabinet to include the Ministries of Bicycles and Boats he spoke about on the hustings!!
More unilateralism??