…in the Presidency
Here we go again!! It’s clear that President Granger is a devout practitioner of the advice given by WC Fields: “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit!!” And in this he’s following in the footsteps of that other snake-oil salesman, Forbes Burnham. But that shouldn’t surprise us, should it? He’s publicly sworn to “complete the legacy” of his mentor Burnham.
Take his promise a few days ago on housing: “I would like to leave office where there is not a single homeless Guyanese. Every single Guyanese will have a roof over their head.” Now what else is this but a reprise of Burnham’s “Feed, house and clothe the nation” promise, which he made in 1972 and was to be completed in four years?? And of course we know he failed abysmally with not even one-tenth of the 60,000 houses completed!! And even those were created just for the PNC faithful, mainly in Georgetown. Burnham was in power for another decade after the plan’s ending of 1976, but we know he left the nation even hungrier, more homeless, and more naked than when he was handed power on a platter by outside forces.
And Granger will fail for the same reason Burnham did: a wilful and stubborn disregard of economic realities, and a willingness to believe his own BS. He told his captive audience at Perseverance Scheme – which was launched by the PPP administration! – in what was clearly a campaign stop on state funds, “Housing helps to take (poor people) out of poverty…and it is my mission to completely abolish homelessness in this country.” Now, let us look at that statement a bit closer.
How can being you pull people out of poverty without creating the environment wherein they can get jobs to enable them to pay their mortgages?? Granger and Burnham are putting the cart before the horse, since they’ve both destroyed jobs and squeezed the business sector, which actually creates jobs, with their fiscally repressive policies. What’s going to happen is that these schemes will become as crime-ridden and decrepit as other new schemes, such as Caneville, because of the unemployment level. The spirits of the homeowners who’ll be forced to give up their homes when the Banks foreclose on them will become broken, since they’d have succumbed to the snake-oil patter of people like Granger and sunken the meagre savings into the homes. They would’ve lost “corn and husk”.
But we did learn something from Granger’s patter. Realising how outrageous his promise must’ve sounded, he said it could be fulfilled, “cause I ain’t leffing for just now.”
Like with Burnham, a rig is in the cards!
…and vision problems
Prime Minister Nagamootoo took time to inform us in his column this week that he was jetting off to New York. First class, of course!! But that’s understandable. After all, he’d just completed his only chore: writing that column!! But the column, captioned “Vision 2040”, was revealing – no pun intended. He boasted that his last eye test showed he had 20/20 vision – normal eyesight. But we know that ain’t so, don’t we? The challenge from Ramjattan demonstrates that he didn’t see the writing on the wall!!
But in boasting of his Govt’s “Green State Development Strategy (GSDS) – Vision 20/40, which was just handed back by the UN Environment Programme Director — he should know the PNC coalition’s been given a signal that they’re very shortsighted. For if 20/20 is normal eyesight, 20/40 means your eyesight’s been cut by half!! And that’s exactly what has happened to this Government, with their refusal to accept that Jagdeo’s LCDS is light years better for Guyana that the GSDS.
Those that have eyes, let them see!!
…and integrity
The Integrity Commission’s Chair says he’s “unaware” of President Granger not filing his assets report with the Commission – as mandated by the law the Chairman’s supposed to enforce.
And this AFTER the President himself was forced to confess he hadn’t filed!!