Blackmail and Divisions

Blackmail

It was Martin Carter who might have given the opposition the theme for their axe-wielding on the budget: the mouth is muzzled by the hand that feeds it. Carter, after all, was referring to Burnham’s vindictive and belittling control after the latter had appointed him as minister of information. It was the spitefulness and petty mindedness of the insecure tyrant who could not stand the possibility that Carter would outshine him.

And it is so that the wankers in the opposition are insistent that the government of President Ramotar be kept on a string simply, because they control Parliament by a single, solitary seat. And by that statistical aberration, they lucked out to control spending. But in wantonly slashing the budget it matters not a whit to these miscreants that it is the country’s development that is being muzzled and stifled.

They hacked away at programmes simply – as Granger had the temerity to announce publicly – to gain ‘leverage’! The development of the country is to be plunged into reverse gear so that the APNU/ AFC gain ‘leverage’ to hold the government to ransom. And these wankers also have no shame to reveal that they are only interested in helping their “supporters”. As Granger callously put it: “We will continue to work for our supporters, because we will use the leverage we have gained this evening to go back to the government and continue talks until we get what we want.” “Blackmail” would be a better word for what the opposition is demanding.

Their dominant demands leave no doubt as to who are these “supporters”: a 10 per cent increase in the salaries of public servants; reduction of the Berbice River Bridge toll; increase the retirement age of public servants to 65; an increase in the Gy$ 900 million subvention to the UG; reinstatement of subvention to Critchlow and enforcing public service collective bargaining, etc, etc. This is on top of blocking the billions to subsidise Linden’s electricity.

What the opposition is doing, as this newspaper’s editorial pointed out, is to entrench ‘warlordism’ to benefit one’s own clan and tribe. And the devil takes the hindmost for those groups whose leaders refuse to go down that road. With our arms upraised, we warn all right minded Guyanese who are concerned with the survival of this nation, to denounce these power-hungry wankers in the opposition.

Divisions

Nothing exposes the callousness and cynicism of the opposition’s single-mindedness to usurping power – like ensuring that this nation reverts to the days where each community looks at others with suspicion and enmity – is the eradication of the programmes covered under the LCDS. More than anything else, the LCDS placed the indigenous peoples at the centre of this country’s development for the first time since the Dutch set up their trading post in 1614 or thereabouts.

By slashing the funding for solar panels that would have ensured the interior, remote communities generate electricity, the opposition has doomed the indigenous peoples from sharing in the communications and information revolution. It obviously does not bother these wanker warlords that they are ensuring that slash-and-burn Stone Age agricultural practices are the lot of indigenous peoples for another hundred years.

The LCDS made the Indigenous peoples the ultimate guardians of our national forests – and paid them for it.

The entire world had been galvanised by former President Jagdeo’s foresight in placing so much of those forests at the service of mankind to sequester carbon. We had an opportunity to be known by the rest of the world for something other than “Jonestown and Kool Aid”. The opposition would cut our nose to spoil our face. What a bunch of wankers!

Cricket spite

Following the Tiger’s departure after his epic accomplishment, the WI put up a pyrotechnic display that might have delighted the spectators but leaves the question: Why no Gayle or Sarwan to boost the top order for England?