Plenipotentiaries…

…for Berbice

We are witnessing an interesting development in Guyanese politics and governance – the fissioning of the nation for the expedience of getting a few more votes. PRIME Minister Moses Nagamootoo went down to his home village of Whim, with his fellow Whimsian Ramayya and Ramjattan, originally from up the road at 48 Village. This Eyewitness isn’t going to comment on the crowd bussed in and the pickets that greeted him: he found Nagamootoo’s reaction more interesting.

After hearing all the complaints of the neglect and alienation of Berbicians (didn’t he hear all of these during the campaign?) Nagamootoo suddenly announced that he will appoint a special “PRIME Minister representative” in Berbice. Now if this isn’t seat-of-the-pants governance, what is? Did Nagamootoo consult with his President and the rest of the Cabinet – which he assures us he sometimes chairs? The question is this: which part of the country doesn’t have problems and challenges? To address those issues isn’t this why we have the entire Regional system?

Did Nagamootoo forget that at the same elections he was elected to be PRIME Minister, there were also Regional elections that produced Regional Chairmen, Regional Councils and various entities to serve the people in the Regions? OK, if Nagamootoo, doesn’t care for the “will of the people” that delivered a PPP fella as Regional Chairman, and he wants his own man, doesn’t the rules of the game allow the Government to appoint a technocrat/Bureaucrat as Regional Executive Officer (REO)?

And if he didn’t want a bureaucrat who might bring up inconvenient objections that Nagamootoo’s directives weren’t in his rule-book, wasn’t Ramayya, who’d just been appointed as the “Quasi-political” REO of Region Six traipsing behind him? But that brings up the crux of the matter, doesn’t it? If the Government went to all the trouble to take the flack to appoint a “quasi political” REO, why can’t that be enough for Nagamootoo?

And the answer is that the self-esteemed challenged Nagamootoo doesn’t want a Ramayya who grew up catching crabs with him at the Whim foreshore, and still insists on calling him “Moses”. Didn’t Ramayya quit the AFC when Nagamootoo offered him a job at Gy$180,000 and no driver? And told him to stick his offer where the sun doesn’t shine? To crib a phrase from the late Desmond Hoyte, Nagamootoo wants someone who will be “his creature”.

So when he says, “Jump!” the fella will whimper, “How high, sah?” Then Nagamootoo told the surly Berbicians that “Ramayya has Gy$260M to spend along with the Regional Chairman”. Really? So when his Special Representative brings supplications outside the budget, what then?

Ah! The things a man has to do to boost his ego!

…and divisions

Back in his old hunting grounds, PRIME Minister Nagamootoo fell into an expansive mood. He confessed what he’d been denying for months: that there were severe problems and divisions in the marriage between the APNU and the AFC. Seems he couldn’t hide it from these folks of Whim who’d witnessed the marriage to begin with. He accepted he’s been getting “blow” in the political marriage.

When his comrade from the “old days”, Ralph Ramkarran, had suggested the marriage was “troubled” and possibly on the rocks, Nagamootoo’d staunchly denied this. It’s always possible he didn’t know but in most of these cases folks deny they are being cuckolded. However, Nagamootoo confessed to the good folks at Whim he’d been having “discussions” about the problems – presumably with the agreed-to political marriage councillors headed by Burch-Smith.

What’s a bride to do when her “pre-nuptial” Accord isn’t honoured? Go to the courts?

Or remain and cry at nights?

…new SUV

In a place like Berbice, you know those who showed up to see Nagamootoo and weren’t bussed in, were there for a reason.

They wanted to gawk at the Gy$22M SUV.

Which could’ve bought the entire paddy crop from Whim!