Category: Eyewitness

…sugar workers One of the most callous actions this PNC-led government has acquiesced in is the fee it allowed its much-coddled SPU to charge the fired sugar workers of Skeldon Estate for fishing in the canals of the “backdam”. Thrown into the streets two years ago, without the government facilitating any sort social net much less alternative employment, the hapless ex-workers have been forced to scrounge around for their families’ survival. And what have they done to alleviate the pangs of hunger? Not robbed fellow citizens as so many have…

Read More

…for public officials’ Code of Conduct Our dual-citizen Minister of Business, Gaskin, announced that by this Friday, Guyana will have a “Minibus Code of Conduct”!! Imagine that!! We’ll have minibus drivers and conductors wearing slick-looking uniforms instead of those ratty and dingy outfits that looked like they were handed down by gold miners on their return from the bush!! Conductors will be politely inquiring, with a smile, whether you’d like to travel in their spanking new “carriages” and inform you of the fare in advance!! No more pulling or tugging…

Read More

…in politics In her landmark judgement on the no-confidence vote, Chief Justice Roxane George cleared up a nettlesome issue that had been in suspended animation for decades – the status of dual citizen MPs. The Constitution, in Article 155(1), after all, had been crystal clear: “No person shall be qualified for election as a member of the National Assembly who – (a)is by virtue of his own act, under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power or state…” Yet, here it was, from the moment the…

Read More

…the Constitution Whatever doubts your Eyewitness expressed about the PNC-led coalition Government’s intentions after the Chief Justice’s rulings on their challenges to the NCM – that President and Cabinet should’ve resigned immediately after Dec 21 – were swept away by PNC party leader Granger’s inelegant but emphatic announcement, “I ain’t goin’ no way!” Granger was in full campaign mode in front of a large throng of green-clad party faithful at the opening of a “Reg 3 Congress Place” and spoke in the vernacular to energise his bussed-in supporters. He announced…

Read More

…PNC’s bets The PNC received a powerful punch to their solar plexus with the judgements of Chief Justice Roxane George on the three cases filed with the High Court on the NCM. But it wasn’t a sucker punch as some of their partisans are squealing!! It’s just they expected the CJ would suspend her professionalism – earned over decades, first in the DPP office and then on the bench – because of “kith and kin” calls!! But the good Judge is obviously possessed of the requisite qualities for a “fit…

Read More

…and racial discrimination Looks like Opposition Leader Jagdeo has had it with the PNC-led Government and its partisans branding him and the PPP as “anti-African”. He’s once again challenged one of the most vociferous proponents of that line, David Hinds, to a debate. Your Eyewitness doubts Hinds will accept the challenge, since much of the rhetoric on the issue is just that – rhetoric!! What’s facts got to do with it?!! Take one of the standard examples cited by Hinds and others –unemployment in Linden’s bauxite belt. Sam Hinds, who…

Read More

…comeuppance for City Officials? The PPP’s still being blamed for the PNC-run City Council turning Georgetown into the fourth circle of hell for a quarter of a century. Yes, Hamilton Green’s “Good and Green Party” might’ve won the municipal vote in 1994, but that’s only because he billed himself as “the real PNC”. And he was, because the moment the PNC was returned to power in 2015, PNC leader David Granger’s first act was to confer the Order of Roraima on Green and to increase his pension by 1000 per…

Read More

…with the PNC Moses Nagamootoo is a pathetic excuse for a politician – even by the not exactly stratospheric standards of that profession!! Promised a piece of the action by the PNC after his PPP cohorts dumped him as an empty windbag, he persuaded his friend, AFC leader Ramjattan, that they wouldn’t end up as “dead meat” after coalescing, as the latter feared. But here he is, reduced to a caricature of Naipaul’s “Mimic Man” politician at the end of a humiliating and inglorious career, writing a weekly column in…

Read More

…for the job The PPP elected their presidential candidate through a procedure they’ve had for exactly fifty years: having their 35-member Central Committee vote by secret ballot. Yet, from the squeals from some quarters you’d think General Secretary Jagdeo stuffed the ballot box like Burnham in 1973! No one could believe Irfaan Ali would trounce Anil Nandlall in a straight one-and-one faceoff. But he did after all the other three candidates dropped out. Some had figured that he could only squeak in if the vote was splintered …but here it…

Read More

…with PPP After a year of fervent speculation – more by forces outside the PPP than inside! – after the CCJ determined third terms weren’t in sync with our Constitution, the PPP has elected the individual who will carry its presidential standard in the next elections. Which, the Constitution insists, should be three months hence!! That individual is the youthful Irfaan Ali, who’s been in the Party all his life, starting with the PYO. In more ways than one, this is a new beginning for the PPP in that Irfaan…

Read More