Opposition slackers

Sponging

The opposition captured a one-seat majority in Parliament and declared the beginning of a “new dispensation”. So what differences have they introduced – apart from hogging control of the Speakership and all the committees? I mean there’s nothing new about that old Burnhamite grab for total control, is there? With two admirers of the Kabaka – Trotman as Speaker and Granger as opposition leader, who expected different? Not to mention those two unreconstructed Stalinists Ramjattan and Nagamootoo bringing up the rear.
They didn’t change anything about duty-free vehicles, did they? Are you kidding? These fellas dropped off their request for new vehicles to the parliamentary office the same day they entered Parliament! And note that they don’t give a darn about fuel concerns – its SUV’s all the way! We’re talking about millions in allowances here.
But you’d think with all these benefits the opposition would have some greater consideration for the nation’s business. Don’t bet on it. They certainly haven’t changed anything about their ‘recess’ – that is their two month annual ‘summer’ holiday.
Here it is, the country’s practically brought to a standstill by protests in Linden and calls to new insurrections on the coast by the WPA – and the opposition traipse off to their ‘recess’? What the heck? The salt in the wound (of the body politic, of course) is that all of the tumult and hysteria were brought about by the selfsame opposition! We hear the new agreements by the opposition elements of Linden are to be signed on Monday. What then? If the demands are to be met, all of them require monies from the Consolidated Funds – not anticipated by the budget, thank you.
You’d think after all the highfalutin opposition talk about ‘fiscal responsibility’; they’d want to be around to give approval – if not monitor – this new spending, right? Wrong! This is the height of irresponsibility. Now of course, all of this new spurt of spending is for the opposition’s supporters – so maybe no “fiscal responsibility” required, eh? Now some of you might be thinking that the poor dears need a break from spewing all that hot air in Parliament. Global warming and all that. But don’t forget that these slackers meet at best, once a week – excepting for budgets. They’ve never even broken a sweat in the air-conditioned parliamentary chamber.
In other jurisdictions, parliamentarians catch up with their local constituents during recess. Not here! As Ramjattan said without shame, he’s got to have his vacation! Good sense Buxtonians offered a stinging rebuke to David Hinds and his WPA motley crew of doddering ‘revolutionaries’. The old farts had called upon the villagers to go back to 2001-2006 and dig up the roads in ‘support’ of Linden.
They obviously missed the irony that they held up their placards (barely at waist high) in front of the gas station of the young Buxtonian entrepreneur, Hamilton.
When they saw that they couldn’t muster even the proverbial ‘handful’ of support, they slunk down to Linden to the public meeting called to announce the terms agreed to with the government. They were shunned there again as other speakers called for a more considered approach to settle differences.

Bad sense
The government has opened up a can of worms by bargaining with regional representatives of Linden to settle their grievance over the proposed electricity tariff equalisation. Our political system has a forum for settling such differences – Parliament. Here, a national perspective is mandatory, since representatives from all over the country will push their needs to the fore.
When the government sits down with regional representatives as equals, they are undermining our constitutional basis for the allocation of power. We should not be surprised when other regions, in identical circumstances to Region 10, protest to get the centre’s attention.
A worse decision was government’s promise to rebuild all damaged infrastructure. This is rewarding warlordism.