Category: Editorials

Most Guyanese refused to believe that David Granger and the PNC – camouflaged as APNU/AFC – would have rigged to keep to power. Very “knowledgeable” citizens insisted that the electoral system had enough robust safeguards to prevent the electoral shenanigans that took place under the PNC regimes between 1973 and 1985. But they were thinking of technical safeguards, such as the integrity of the electoral lists, counting of ballots at the place of poll in the presence of scrutineers and other innovations that were instituted specifically to rectify abuses the…

On March 2, Guyanese thought they drew a proverbial line in the sand on the creeping subversion of the rule of law, which is a disturbing sign of a return to the dark days of the PNC’s dictatorial rule, especially between 1968 and 1985 under Forbes Burnham, that party’s “founder leader”. During the last five years, there were too many examples abounding of governmental institutions — led by President David Granger — stretching and acting outside their constitutional remit and taking unilateral political decisions that plunged the country further down…

On Sunday, Guyana commemorated 50 years of being a Republic, having cut all governance ties with Britain, which had ruled us for almost two centuries. Those who agitated for the rupturing of those ties went to great lengths to reveal and explain their exploitative nature, which left us so underdeveloped that after four centuries of the Dutch and British using our human and physical resources for producing raw sugar, only this year we are finally proposing to refine that sugar for our own consumption rather than importing our sugar which…

After growing pressure from the Opposition and civil society groups, Guyana finally has a Local Content Policy (LCP) in place to help guide the operations of the oil and gas sector, and more so to ensure that Guyanese benefit from the sector. Many were hoping that a robust LCP would have been finalised before oil production commenced last December but the government rejected two early drafts that were prepared by a Caribbean expert in favor of the present one drafted by a British source and which left the country unprepared…

As with so many of the aphorisms distilling wisdom into pithy utterances, it was the Bard who proposed that “what’s past is prologue”. Meaning that history sets a context for the present and the unfolding of the future. And so, in reviewing the just-released “manifesto which is not a manifesto” of the APNU/AFC coalition, it will be useful to review their prologue in their past exercise of 2015. We have also been warned that history may even repeat itself: “first as tragedy and then as farce”. In 2015, the raison…

The General and Regional Elections are weeks away and as expected, the political parties are using every possible opportunity to convince the electorate to give them a chance to manage the affairs of the nation. One of the main issues that voters would be making their decision on is the policies and plans of the various parties in terms of job creation and training opportunities since these are key concerns of everyone, especially young people. In fact, if one were to conduct a survey among youths in Guyana to find…