Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
May 24, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
I am going to write on things that I have evidence which I can use to confront my detractors. There are sycophantic souls in this country that would shout from the rooftop of the good things Cheddi Jagan’s party did from 1992. There are misplaced souls whose heads are buried in the sand so they will cuss you down if you tell them that President Burnham damaged Guyana extensively because of his obsession with power.
There are folks out there who think Mr. Granger is the President for the future and all praise must be given to the Coalition Government. Those emotional outpourings have no intellectual connections. The realities of Guyana paint a completely different portrait. In assessing how far we have come since May 1966, the Coalition Government will naturally escape harsh critiques because it has not contributed to the barrenness of this society since 1966.
But are there signs that the coalition Government will not be the super-hero that the people of this country so desperately need and that I refer to as Nietzsche Übermensche. The indications after one year in office are not only disappointing but extremely disturbing. Let’s look at the facts, the naked, graphic evidence of a government that looks like it will spend its five year mandate in the bonfires of the banalities.
First, one of the main omissions in Guyana’s development drive is lack of a manufacturing base. I go to the supermarket almost daily and I am sickened to the core of my soul that Guyana imports milk from a country that is an ultra-modern manufacturing and industrial giant – Germany. Countries that are highly developed industrial societies without the kind of agricultural space we have, export milk to Guyana. The list includes Holland and France. Holland is 16,000 square miles; Guyana is 83,000.
So what did Guyana do in 2016? Instead of taking the vast Durban Park Square and put down some kind of manufacturing plant or remedial schools or some kind of economic project, we have utilized the land to build stands to celebrate the Golden Jubilee. What happens after? The cows and homeless people move in; a waste of precious money.
The second factor is eerie and indicates that irrationality may have already stepped in. This government has lost its way already. It is simply mentally devastating to the people of Guyana that had lovely dreams of liberation after 2015.
The University of Guyana using state funds, will offer a ten percent increase to four of the five highest paid officials who were employed within the past two years at international market rates. Yet to date there is no movement on staff salaries including categories of employees whose income cry out for elevation; we are talking about the non-academic staff and the underpaid academics.
It is the largest indication to date that we are seeing the continuation of anti-working class elite rule that has been with us since colonial days
Thirdly, after only six months into its life, the new government prepared an amendment to the marriage law. That legislation stipulates that a person must be in Guyana 14 days before he/she can marry. The Tourism Minister will soon take the amendment to Parliament. But nowhere on the horizon is there any change to our divorce laws which were enacted in 1933.
Under that legislation, to get a decree nisi, the applicant for a divorce must offer the judge one of three reasons – domestic abuse, desertion of the marital home; infidelity. If the partners want to dissolve the union for another reason, the court will not accept it because the law does not provide for any other explanation. The law compels you to lie in a court of law. I haven’t done the research but I doubt any modern democratic country has a divorce Bill which compels petitioner to lie to a judge
Fourthly, President Granger says that there is no amendment to the marijuana law on the government’s legislative agenda. What this means is that you can still go to jail for being in possession of a smoking utensil.
Fifthly, there isn’t even a shadow of change on the horizon with our libel laws. The Prime Minister was a practising journalist who got sued by Prime Minister Forbes Burnham and under our outdated libel laws, the party newspaper, The Mirror, had to pay substantial damages. The question is; will he retire (as is expected in 2020) without modernizing our libel legislation.
Those are the indications in the first year of the Coalition in power that we may not be going in modern directions in the near or immediate future.
LISTEN HOW JAGDEO WILL MAKE ALL GUYANESE RICH!!!
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