Category: Eyewitness

…on PNC’s voting focus The PNC – still using the fig leaf name “APNU” – had its last rally in Georgetown to fire up its supporters for Monday’s LGE. They beat the bushes with all the ingenuity they could muster (cheap Banks was the clincher for the usual Stabroek Market lumpentariat!) and managed to attract some four hundred bodies. It’s clear that David Granger had been scheduled to address the faithful, but with him stuck in Cuba dealing with his (unrevealed) illness, the party made an interesting choice for its…

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…and Mislabelling The author Thomas Wolff’s most famous novel is “You can’t go home again”. In it he scathingly details the lives of his hometown folks. He originally had another name for it, but after a friend read the manuscript and told him he’ll never be able to return home, he changed the title. In his weekly Chronicle column – the sum of his endeavours for G$20 million annually with perks! – Moses Nagamootoo complains that one of his erstwhile comrades in the PPP, and a Berbician to boot, told…

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…in sugar divestment Your Eyewitness was thrown for a loop when he learnt DDL pulled out of the bidding for Enmore Estate at the last moment. When DDL discovered the production from the three “grinding” estates couldn’t supply them with enough molasses to produce their world-class rums, they worked with the SPU to restart the Enmore operations to supply the rest, didn’t they? What did they learn? Now, no matter how you slice it or dice it, DDL’s a very well-run outfit, and it behooves the SPU – if no…

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…on contracts One of the greatest failures of this PNC-led Government has been their abysmal monitoring of contracts for executing their work programme. There isn’t a day that goes by when there isn’t a nasty revelation of billions paid to contractors for work done so shoddily it invariably costs more to fix the mess. Remember Durban Park “Jubilee Park” that was going to be built by a newly formed Homestretch Development Inc (HDI) – involving Rupert Roopnarine? They spent G$550 million of money collected from the public, for which they…

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…of Georgetown The Kennard CoI into the Town Clerk’s venality has ripped the scab off the sore that’s the Georgetown Mayor and City Council, and oh, what a stench is created by the pus oozing out like the City’s open sewer drains! Sale of City lands; rentals of City wharves; cooking (and stealing!) of the books; jobs and contracts for friends and relatives; featherbedding for the same; jet- setting lifestyle; unlimited vehicles and guards! Why, Georgetown had become the personal fiefdom of the PNC Mafia to rape and to hold!!…

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…on the hussy bully David Granger fired former Chancellor of the Judiciary Cecil Kennard from the Police Complaints Office, ostensibly because he was too old — about 80 years. But Granger’s action was exposed for the witch-hunting it was by two sets of events, one retrospective and the other prospective. Kennard had been extremely active in his position, suggesting all kinds of changes – like demanding more investigators, and travelling to all the other regions to take complaints. And then, right after dumping Kennard, Granger went and unilaterally appointed a…

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…in Brazil Most Guyanese probably don’t even realise that the giant on our southern border – Brazil – just had a change of government that’s gonna affect us significantly. Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, is a former army captain who’s the exact opposite of that other army officer who became a South American president. Naah! Not David Granger, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. If Chavez was the fiery socialist who smelt a whiff of “sulphur” – an allusion to the Devil — in the presence of Republican US President George Bush,…

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…AFC leaders Ralph Ramkarran is a well-meaning fellow…but he’s either incurably optimistic or preternaturally naïve. Pointing to the studied silence of the PNC-led Government on the constitutional reform they’d promised – to open up the political space in Guyana – he repeated an earlier suggestion: “The AFC’s Ministers should leave the Government, sit in the back benches, support the Government if they wish, but insist on constitutional reform in return for their continuing support.” Your Eyewitness choked on his coffee when he read that!! Does Ramkarran really hope the AFC…

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…“Granger, Ganja and Goadie” It’s rather pathetic how the putative Prime Minister of Guyana, Moses Nagamootoo, has embraced his relegation to being the mouthpiece of David Granger’s PNC government. A few weeks ago, in Granger’s “Guyana Review” — now published as an insert in the Stabber News — there was such a cloyingly sycophantic puff piece on Granger that health centres across the country were inundated by readers who couldn’t stop gagging!! Unfortunately, just when the medical staff might be taking a well-earned break, they’ll be getting another tsunami of…

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…in cricket No…your Eyewitness isn’t going into a tirade over the WI second loss to India in their two-Test series. He’s too dejected for that. It’s worse when they flatter to deceive; like when, in this second Test, they restricted India to a lead of just 56, and then collapsed for 127, giving their opponents a mere 72 runs to win the match and the series. It’s time once again to discuss whether we belong in Cricket Tests. Contrast our performance with those in the shorter forms of the game…

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