Latest update April 24th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 03, 2016 News
By Sase Singh.
INTRODUCTION
What started in Tunisia brought this question back to the table about whether there is space for a revolutionary working-class movement to advance the cause of the majority of the people.
In the Mecca of capitalism, Senator Bernie Sanders clearly illustrates to us that in most societies, the 90% at the bottom are not happy with what is happening to them compared to the top 1%. Trotsky once said that a revolutionary situation is created when in an environment of dual power; one of those power centres consistently abuses that relationship. He referred to it as the “dual impotence of the bourgeoisie class”.
It is a simple philosophy; some politicians tell the people to give them a chance so that they can fix the ills that are perverting progress. The people give them a chance and then they do completely the opposite by using that power loaned to them by the people, to operate in a bubble, as if they are not accountable to the people.
GUYANA
Do we see any similarities in Guyana over the past decade including today?
Too many politicians have committed egregious breaches of the people’s trust by enriching themselves financially with the people’s money, leaving less for the ordinary people.
This mental corruption did not just happen under the PPP, it has been happening for most of our independent 50 years and continues to happen even today in 2016.
For example, spending close to a billion dollars of the people money on all sorts of jubilee projects such as D’Urban Park, when over 217,000 of our citizens are living in poverty, can only be classified as mentally bankrupt and an outrageous abuse of one’s position.
But the lack of transparency and accountability around this D’Urban Park Project remains inexcusable. On May 5, 2016, in a public statement published in the State Newspapers, the country was promised full details and accountability on the spending with regards to this project. It is now August 2016 and the Project Completion Report still cannot be laid in Parliament.
This reminds me of a previous government being unable to account for the funds spent on World Cup Cricket.
But this is how the new petit bourgeoisie class operates today, with many similarities in attitudes with the team before them. They spend the people’s money by the billions and do not feel obliged to account to the people.
When the working class, especially those single mothers who are security guards, have to watch the new petit bourgeoisie class collect their 50% increase only three weeks after assuming office, but still cannot see their “small piece” some 15 months after, that is a revolutionary situation. Actually, the working class is being labeled as lazy these days by some in this new petit bourgeoisie class as their way of justifying why the one per cent at the top should scoop the cream from the Treasury on their journey to becoming stupidly rich, while the 90% at the bottom continue to get poorer.
The masses will revolt by migrating which will just make Guyana so much poorer. If the people are not in Guyana, who are you going to tax; phantoms?
For my entire adult life I have been hearing infantile excuses from the ruling class that “we do not have enough resources to do the things we want to do for you the people”. It is a blatant untruth and must be exposed.
Explain to me how come they will find some $700 million in 2016 to fly first class all around the world on taxpayers’ money on many trips that provide little value for money spent, but continue to deny the workers their fair share of the economic pie?
I know a white business owner in Maryland who took a pay cut for all of 2013 and 2014 so that he could keep all his staff on the payroll. But the new “massa” in Guyana got to get more so that the people can get less and they call that public service; that is a public crime.
AGRICULTURE
It was former President Bill Clinton who reminded us of the real deal and the makeup deal (fake) to fool the people. The real deal is when the 90% can see an improvement in their lives in a real way. That is not happening in Guyana today.
For most of its 50 years, Guyana lived in a fake deal and when we worked to change that in May 2015, but all we got was a change in personnel; but the ideals from the past and the ideals of the present bear much resemblance.
Today “nuff nuff” money spending but it is not percolating down to that 90%. That is a crying shame, because when the small but important group of approximately 4,000 persons from the sugar belt rejected the PPP in 2015 and voted for this Coalition Government (667 from Bath Settlement alone), they did it with a pure heart, but with a hope that better will come.
I am still hopeful that one day soon. President Granger will wake up and read the riot act on his hopeless executives who continue to under-perform and under-serve the Guyanese nation.
Guyana remains an agricultural country but the starkest reminder of this under-performance is how the people in the agriculture sector have literally been abandoned.
There is enough irrefutable evidence now to illustrate a gross display of policy ignorance and executive incompetence in the Ministry of Agriculture. There is extreme variance with the real issues that urgently needs executive intervention. Some of the best farmers are life-long supporters of the PNC and this executive incompetence is seriously hurting the PNC. So this cannot be only politics; this is plain and simple incompetence.
The PNC has an important role to shake up this government as it continues to fall asleep on the wheel. I remember meeting one of the best swine farmers in Essequibo Coast who always told me, “Boy Sase, I born a PNC and I will die a PNC”. He sent me an email last week saying “these people nah know wha dem ah do”. It is the same in the sugar and rice belt and in many other sub-sectors. We can do better than this as a nation.
If one looks at all the indicators in the agriculture sector, irrespective of how we twist it and turn it, it speaks to a consistent message; one of policy neglect, lack of creativity on the new ideas, and a failure to think outside of the box on the big issues.
These actions by the petit bourgeoisie have all the ingredients to stimulate a revolutionary situation… and I am not talking about guns. I am talking about rice farmers abandoning the land to work as construction workers in America on a visitor’s visa.
That is how the people are revolting, with intellect, not bullyism. Guyana will suffer in the end as we gain short-term remittances in exchange for a destroyed rice industry.
LINDEN
Think about the people of Linden. They have been in a depression since the alumina plant closed. Why can’t we find one big project or idea to create some real jobs for these people on a sustainable basis?
If there is any urban area that has a strong culture towards working hard and building a nation, it is Linden. They do not need a handout, they need a fishing rod; they shall do their own fishing. I remember being part of the team that wrote the AFC action plan in 2011. In that document were some great ideas to turn around Region Ten. But today not one of them has been implemented so far.
CONCLUSION
As you can see from my tone, I am very concerned that we are not doing what is needed to protect our long-term future by stimulating a national development programme that is grounded in transformational ideas and projects.
How long will the policy makers continue to overtax the taxpayers to pay for the parades, squander-mania projects, and the Cadillac lifestyle? Better must come to Guyana!
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