Category: Eyewitness

  …or campaigning Another week, another “outreach”! That’s the motto of the PNC-led coalition Government since the successful NCM in the National Assembly back on Dec 21, 2018. Ministers who’d never left their air-conditioned offices in Georgetown over the previous three and a half years are suddenly heading out to the “sticks”, to listen to the “needs of the people” straight from the yahoos’ mouth. And not only to listen, but to dole out on-the-spot “solutions” to those needs! What couldn’t be done in the aforementioned three and a half…

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  …and terrorism Your Eyewitness is still floored by the PNC’s arrogance to officially “big up” their ex-MP Abdul Kadir, who’d been convicted as a TERRORIST by a US Federal Jury for plotting an act that would’ve made the World Trade Center terrorism look like tiddlywinks. NY’s JFK International Airport is one of the busiest in the world, with an internationalised clientele as no other. If Kadir and his co-conspirers had succeeded in exploding the fuel tanks and fuel pipeline under the airport as they had planned, the explosion would’ve…

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  …the same pack of cards Three months after Chief Justice George declared that the unambiguous language of the Constitution barred dual citizens from sitting in the National Assembly, President David Granger finally moved to comply with her order; unanimously reiterated by the Appellate Court. The four APNU/AFC MPs — all of whom had ministerial responsibilities — finally resigned, and were “replaced”. And it’s in these “replacements” that we see it isn’t only in Ukraine that a comedian is the president of a nation. Surely, Granger gotta be joking with…

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…and polarising the society One of the debilitating features of Guyanese life that your Eyewitness has tried to highlight in this space has been the PNC’s proclivity for flouting the highest laws of the country, then whipping up their supporters’ emotions to defend them. This causes the ethnic tectonic plates in the society to drift ever further apart, and one wonders when they’ll become permanently disjunctured. Take the fallout from the NCM moved by the PPP. The PNC and their propaganda tentacles have refused to acknowledge that this is a…

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…the verdict Your Eyewitness still hasn’t gotten over the decision handed down by the divided Court of Appeal on the Government’s contention that the Chief Justice had erred in the High Court when she ruled that 33 was the majority in the 65-member Assembly! Imagine that!! But to reach that verdict the Chancellor and Justice Gregory-Barnes had to twist themselves into legal pretzels by dividing folks into halves, “rounding” them back “whole”, and then throwing in “one more” for good measure!! God knows where that “one” would come from!! Your…

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…the constitutional line Still can’t get over the decision by the two Appellate Court Justices on that NCM. One friend pointed out that there is such a thing as “judge made law”; so while the Justices might’ve stretched things a bit, it’s within their remit to do so. But what he ignored was this was not just any old law — like manslaughter vs murder — that the Judges could extend from what their predecessors had ruled (stare decisis) by INSERTING A NEW WORD INTO THE CONSTITUTION to change the…

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…or unctuous? Your Eyewitness looked at President Granger’s address to the nation on the constitutional crisis into which he has plunged our country by his refusal to comply with the Constitution – even as he calls it “sacrosanct and supreme” – and wasn’t surprised that it was recorded rather than live. It would’ve been impossible to keep out the snickers of derision and disbelief that would’ve issued forth from any live audience!! And performance it was – as it has always been for Granger. But what kind of performance?? Being…

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…checkmated? Folks are wondering why the PNC is raising such a storm and fury over the elections date – after their immediate acceptance of the consequences of the NCM. What’s the difference even a year would make? Some say they wanted “first oil” to start flowing, so that they could dazzle the electorate with a spending bonanza rivalling those of the “pork- knockers” of yore!! Money to burn! Literally!! There COULD be something there. Exxon’s never deviated from predicting first oil in March 2020, and the coalition Government’s full five-year…

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…on elections One of the tropes deployed by the PNC-led coalition to cling to power beyond March 21 is to claim “the PPP used to do worse”! Never mind that even if the assertion were true – which is quite a stretch, considering their depravities in a mere 4 years!-they DID promise to do better in 2015, didn’t they?? But on the specific matter that’s precipitating the greatest constitutional crisis in our history – elections – what’s often at play is the “fallacy of false equivalence”. Which is folks claiming…

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…without first crawling The RUSAL issue illustrates one of the challenges Guyana has to confront, since it’ll determine whether we’ll all sink or swim. There are many folks out there who’re totally oblivious – some deliberately so – to what it’ll take to really DEVELOP our country, even with oil money flowing. The country with the largest oil reserves in the world, Venezuela next door – and its refugees now swarming among us — should remind us oil doesn’t guarantee development. The unions who’re “talking fat” – along with the…

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