…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 cent!!
What’s the point of “local government” if the “local government” can’t run its own affairs?? Are the municipalities presently under the control of PPP slates expected to pilfer their treasuries; live high off the hog and beyond their means – while doling out tax exemptions – and then blame the PNC Government for strangling them?? But it wasn’t only a case of poor administration by the Georgetown PNC Mayors and City Councillors that did the city in. As we found out in audits, first by Keith Burrowes and then by Ramon Gaskin, it was the pervasive skulduggery that was conducted by high PNC officials who ran the city’s affairs.
But nothing was done about it because the good burghers of Georgetown regularly returned them to office out of loyalty to the PNC. While much ink has been spilled about ethnic voting at the Central Governmental level, absolutely nothing has been said about the most flagrant instance of this insidious behaviour at a municipal level – where one-quarter of the voting population resided!! But finally, after the thefts, cronyism and venality of the Town Clerk, Royston King became too much for even the PNC Government, they had to appoint a CoI to check him out.
We don’t have to repeat what Justice Kennard said about him, do we? As recommended, the Local Government Commission just sacked his sorry a55!! But what about his recommendations for audits of the entire city accounts and the actions of the PNC Gang of Four – especially two of them – Executive Member of the PNC and ex-Mayor Chase-Green and ex-PNC General Secretary Oscar Clarke?? What about using SARA to recover all the city resources they pilfered?
But more importantly, with heightened awareness of the mismanagement of Georgetown by the PNC brought about by the refreshingly frank language of Kennard’s CoI, why no acknowledgement that, saddled with a PNC Mayor and City Council, the PPP had absolutely nothing to do with the city’s miserable condition.
The sacking of King is only a start. The entire lot must be prosecuted!!
…robotic representation!
If there’s one thing the no-confidence resolution has done is to reveal the true nature of the PNC in all its anti-democratic squalor!! Imagine they’re arguing in the Courts that there’s “no such thing as a “conscience vote”” once the MP is “extracted from a list”!! Well…well…well! Now let’s not keep this at a theoretical level, let’s look at the instance that threw the PNC Government out!
Charrandas Persaud wasn’t just extracted from any old list – he was extracted from the list for the geographical representation for Region 6!! Does the PNC remember why Regional MP seats were increased in the post-1992 era following their defeat? To create a hybrid system of PR and “first past the post”, that’s what! And the purpose of the latter was for specific MPs to represent their regions and thereby deepen democracy in our political system. And what Charrandas did when he voted against the PNC Government was to explicitly declare that his Reg 6 constituency was being shafted!!
And he could stomach it no more. Long live democracy!!
…a bully backs down – again
First, he swore he’d force Mexico to pay for the wall to keep out migrants. After backing down, he blackmailed Congress to fund the wall by not paying a MILLION Federal workers.
Congress refused…and Trump just folded!! The PPP should take heed. If you stand up to bullies, they’ll stand down!!