Category: Eyewitness

…spreading Trotman just can’t leave well alone, can he? Now that the energy portfolio – read oil and gas – has been plucked from his grubby little hands, he seems driven to find excuses for his embarrassing demotion. Namely that his giveaway on the oil contract with Exxon was so egregious, it made the rape of the Sabine women look like a friendly tussle!! The fella seems to forget it was he who’d boasted about his “negotiation prowess” and he was going to take Exxon to the mat!! He took…

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…or severed? Oh well! Your Eyewitness predicted it would happen, didn’t he? The Government announced that the oil sector, now the largest chunk of our “Natural Resources – and growing uncontrollably, like Topsy! – won’t be under “Nassau” Trotman’s portfolio. But when this newspaper announced the AFC/PNC insider was “stripped” of authority over oil, the MoP got their drawers all into a knot and demanded a retraction!! Now your humble Eyewitness is always ready to learn from anyone, no matter how idiotic they may sound initially. Out of the mouth…

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…on development The good book advises: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” While we may quibble, or even disagree vehemently, about the content of the “vision”, without the overarching plan embedded in a vision, one would just be bumbling through life. And this is even truer when we’re talking about the development of a nation. Unfortunately, with each passing day, it’s clear that this PNC-led Government hasn’t a clue, much less a vision, for Guyana. We all know about the oil contract, wherein Trotman practically gave away our…

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…in agriculture The agony at Wales continue, as the severance payments of the 1400 who received them run out. The picketing exercise by the 300+, who are still fighting being treated like slaves and indentured servants who had no labour agreement, brought this out clearly from their placards and cries. How many “pointer brooms” can they sell to survive, when there is no other alternative? The workers’ call for the dismissal of Agriculture Minister Noel Holder is not just because of the spiteful withholding of their severance. This is the…

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…spite and bile Your Eyewitness isn’t surprised any longer at how far these AFC windbags can sink. The moment they accepted the PNC’s degutting of the Cummingsburg Accord when Nagamootoo was made into a glorified “gossip monger” rather than a power sharing Prime Minister like in France, you knew they were castrated. Which meant they then had to dance to “do wha’ yuh want wid me!!” But that only goes for the AFC relations with the PNC. To their erstwhile supporters who’ve now deserted them like folks jumping off the…

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…with coalition politics You may think, dear reader, your Eyewitness is a tad too taken up (obsessed?) with the trials and tribulations of the AFC and APNU marriage pact. But as he took pains to point out before, it’s not just a matter about the wankers in the two parties – it’s about coalition politics in Guyana, writ large. And coalition politics is, frankly, the only way forward for us in our God-forsaken country. And what the APNU/AFC coalition has shown us in the last three years is the PNC…

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…or spinning wheels on Third Force There seems to be an effort to jump-start another “Third Force” in Guyana today; and former Speaker Ralph Ramkarran attempted to rationalise it in his column last Sunday. This Third Force idea’s been floated time and again as a way to break the debilitating stand-off between the PPP and PNC – parties which obtain their support from ethnic Indian and African voters, who are closely matched in size. The theory is simple but, unfortunately, also simplistic. It assumes there’s a bloc of voters who…

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…and the boat on judiciary Here we go again! Gridlock! This time it’s on the appointment of the Chancellor and Chief Justice – the two highest officials in the Judiciary. As your Eyewitness has taken pains to belabour, one of the unfortunately unwelcome features of our system of governance is the fusion of the Executive with the Legislative branch – leaving only the Judiciary to prevent a permanent, existential dictatorship after every “democratic” election. If the Executive were to have unfettered power to appoint the members of the Judiciary, then…

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…dead meat? Inquiring minds wanted to know what’s the status of the long demanded “re-negotiation” of the Cummingsburg Accord between APNU and AFC. The demand, of course, had been made after Nagamootoo discovered he’d gotten what his erstwhile comrade in arms, Donald Ramotar, indelicately described as “larwah”, when in fact he’d been promised “largesse” of power. Leader of the AFC, Raphael “Nassau” Trotman, however, said there ain’t going to be no list of rectificatory demands submitted to APNU the day after Valentine’s Day, as everyone assumed. After all, Nagamootoo’s nagging…

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…in anger at all killings On the day before the 10th anniversary of the Lusignan massacre, when 11 men, women and children were massacred by the Fineman gang operating from neighbouring Buxton, President Granger called once again for an inquiry into the killings of what he calls “the troubles”, between 2002 and 2008. Whether or not such an inquiry ever takes place, Guyanese cannot let such a day go as low-keyed as on the 26th of January this year. Have we become so jaded that we do not recall the…

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