Category: Eyewitness

…in Georgetown While the sentiment, “death and taxes are certain” has been expressed for quite a while, it seems the powers-that-be in Guyana are hell-bent on amending it to “death THROUGH taxes” as the lot of Guyanese. Hot on the heels of the US$2.50/hour parking fees imposed (in Queens and Brooklyn our relatives earning TEN times our salaries pay US.75 CENTS/hour!) comes news that City Hall has hiked property rates by 10 per cent. Oi vey!! But that’s not all. This is only at the City Level. Don’t forget your…

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…or plantain chips A couple of decades ago, Thomas Friedman, author and NY Times columnist, observed in his book “The Lexus and the Olive tree”, that even though trade was driving globalisation, the winners of the sweepstakes were shipping ever decreasing tonnage of exports! He explained the conundrum by pointing out that even though, say, less steel or grain may’ve been shipped by them, their almost weightless exports, like computer chips, far exceeded the value of the old exports! Someone in Guyana from that era must’ve heard this nugget of…

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…against Jagdeo The PNC-led coalition Government didn’t need the PPP to hold a Congress, or elections for the Central Committee, or for the General Secretary of the party that Bharat Jagdeo would emerge as the leader of the PPP by being the Opposition Leader and its General Secretary. The moment they filed their appeal in July 2015 to the “third term” ruling of Justice Ian Chang, the cat was out of the bag. They were running scared Jagdeo would run again! But they didn’t need political geniuses to figure that…

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…with Diaspora? One of the most significant outcomes of the first PNC regime was to inflate our Diaspora, where North America became “Region 11” with probably as many persons of Guyanese living there as “back home”. Seeing the important roles other diasporas played in the development of their countries of origin, successive regimes have attempted to duplicate that success here. Without much success. What gives? With the change of Government in 1992, a horde of ex-pats turned up to “help”. However, unlike other diasporas, they didn’t return with capital that’d…

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…on Russia? After Donald Trump was briefed by his intelligence agencies about their claims that the Russians had influenced the US elections through hacking and other nefarious methods, the President-elect was underwhelmed. As you’d be too if you were to read the report that was made available to the public and is circulating on the web. It reminded many US commentators, they confessed ruefully, about the same agencies providing “intel” to justify President Bush’s claim there were “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq – and that the country should be…

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…to UG students Modern youths can’t live without their smartphones that connects them to their world. And your Eyewitness uses the word “their” advisedly since they’re promised that they can choose who to tune in or tune out. Literally. Unfortunately for them, there are a few contacts they can’t tune out if they want to climb up the totem pole – one of them being the University, where they’re supposed to learn the skills that’ll make them manoeuver in the world of adults. Well, this weekend they learnt a valuable…

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…on warehouse graft It’s clear there are elements in this government who have no shame. None! But then you’ll always find such miscreants in any random collection of folks. And when that collection isn’t random, but those who seek “government wuk”, the “shameless quotient” jumps by a factor of at least 10! Anyhow, that was the reaction of your usually stolid Eyewitness when he heard the Junior Minister of Health declaring the Bottom House Warehouse hasn’t been nixed – it’s actually been receiving government drugs!! Shameless! At the final handing…

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…on Govt audits It could be just a matter of serendipity…but more folks would probably say “there is a God!!” Your Eyewitness is referring, of course, to the Muckraker finally accepting (and publishing!!) that the audit from the number one crusader for “transparency” – Chris Ram – was fatally flawed. For what? Lack of transparency!!! And in the same edition the Muckraker carries the umpteenth plea from David Hinds of the WPA – the accusation that the Government is dragging its feet on taking action (read “jailing”) against all the…

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…or debate? It’s become a US tradition during their election campaign…this “debate” between presidential candidates. As far back as Abraham Lincoln’s election of 1858, he had a famous debate with his Democratic rival Senator Stephen Douglas. But that was when a debate meant an exchange of views on issues. It all changed a century later when JFK took on Republican Richard Nixon in 1960 on TV. In the dawning of the age of advertising and “packaging”, “image” pipped “substance”. After Nixon’s close loss to Kennedy, pundits put it down to…

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…fait accompli One of Forbes Burnham’s famous sayings was the folk wisdom, “Back to back…belly to belly…we don’t give a damn…we done dead already!” – meaning that if you know your goose is cooked…it doesn’t matter what the heck you do…so you might just do your worst. This seems to be the guiding principle of this government – which isn’t so surprising since, Prezzie explained the PNC’s still guided by the philosophy of the Founder Leader. The latest inexplicable action by the Government that has to’ve emanated from their “done…

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