Category: Eyewitness

…of coalition comrades The long-awaited meeting of the Executive Council of APNU finally met for the first time in TWO years – in effect, the first time since they slid into office. Your Eyewitness wondered who were invited to this conclave of the much-touted “terrific ten” that had launched their “coalition” back in 2011. There would’ve been, of course, the PNC, the WPA, the National Front Alliance (NFA), the Guyana Action Party (GAP) and the Justice for All Party (JFAP). But were the other five political parties and civil society…

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…with the Minister The Public Security Minister – right now Khemraj Ramjattan – always has INDIVIDUAL ministerial responsibility for the prisons and the Prison Service of Guyana. Under the conventions and traditions of our Westminster system of governance, the Minister resigns when disasters of the magnitude of the Camp Street inferno occur. Plain and simple. There have now been two of these disasters – AT THE SAME PLACE AND FOR THE SAME CAUSES – in two years, but Ramjattan is still there. Why? OK…even though he’d been there for a…

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…all over again at Camp Street! The authorities must be only people in Guyana who’re surprised at the weekend conflagration at the Camp Street jail. Everyone else – from their own bitter experience living in Guyana – knows if you close your eyes and pretend reality will change, you’re living in a fool’s paradise. And so said, so done at Camp Street! On March 3, 2016, we witnessed the horror of 17 inmates incinerated in the facility. Seventeen human lives snuffed out! The Government’s CoI (obligatory for every misstep) announced…

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…US at G20? To most observers, it had to happen sooner rather than later; but none of them thought the dominance of the US in the corridors of world power would be abdicated, rather than dwindle away — as England’s had been after WWI. But at the latest G-20 meeting in Germany, Donald Trump clearly had no inclination to step up to the plate on the dominant issues on the agenda: trade and climate change. On trade matters, with the US pulling out of the mega blocks like TPP —…

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…and integrity If there was anything to that Pinocchio story, PM Moses Nagamootoo’s nose should be reaching further than his outstretched hands by now when it comes to the Integrity Commission he’s supposed to’ve launched over a year now. You remember the Integrity Commission, don’t you Dear Reader?? Yeah…that institution the PNC refused to participate in for a decade and a half because they said Bishop Randolph George, head of the Anglican Church, wasn’t a “fit and proper” person to head it!!  So since then, even though it was the…

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…in coalitions? The meeting between Prezzie and the WPA might’ve been precipitated by the demotion of the latter group’s co-leader, but it seems that the larger issue of the internal relationships within the APNU umbrella was raised. They’ll all be meeting in July, but we don’t know the agenda as yet. It should be interesting, however, if for no other reason than that it reminds Guyanese exactly who’re in this “coalition” with the PNC. In case you’ve forgotten, back in 2011, when it was launched, we were told “A Partnership…

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…on GECOM Chair Your humble Eyewitness isn’t one who likes to crow, “I TOLD YOU SO!” But he has to mention that the outcome of the widely heralded second meeting of Prezzie and Opposition Leader Jagdeo was predicted by him. Not that he’s any analytical whiz or anything – it was clear that we’re looking at a game of “chicken” played out in bright daylight. And neither party (singly and collectively) is willing to jump off the rails as the speeding train of the integrity of our electoral machinery careens…

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…and the PM In charge of the State media, PM Nagamootoo awarded himself a column in this Sunday’s Chronic – “My Turn”.  It’s a Freudian slip, since he promptly launched into an attack on his bete noir, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo. One wonders whether he’ll allow Jagdeo “his turn”. Your Eyewitness doubts it, ‘cause everyone in this Government sees their stint at the wheel as “their turn” to commit all the things they described as “despicable” under the PPP. But your Eyewitness would like to offer some wise advice to…

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…meetings Every business executive has some basic rules on “meetings,” and one of the first rules is to ask, “What’s this meeting about?” If you aren’t clear about the goals of the meeting, you’ll be wasting your time, and you might as well don’t show up. We don’t know about politicians, but here it is: Prezzie’s rejected the Opposition Leader’s second list of nominees for the GECOM Chair, and now wants a meeting. Is it your Eyewitness, or is it déjà vu? What happened after the meeting following the first…

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…with rice Guyanese were, last week, informed by the head of the RPA in Berbice that less rice was planted this crop, because farmers were losing their shirts over the prices they were getting for paddy. That’s not surprising…and in fact the question that occupied your Eyewitness’s mind was why they’d kept planting at the old rate for so long. After the PNC-led APNU/AFC government let the lucrative Venezuelan market of US$780/tonne slip away when they slipped into office in 2015, what was left for them?? A world market price…

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