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Oct 24, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
One of the finest, most admirable humans I have met in this world turned 90 last Sunday. Yesu Persaud celebrated his birthday through a Hindu ceremony named “satsang” last Sunday at the Peters Hall mandir. Guyanese know their country. The temple officials had their standby generator available. Blackout came when the ceremony was in progress.
One of the organizers of the programme came up to me with a huge smile on her face; “Freddie you gat to write about it.” No one was annoyed, because we all know this is the permanent plague Guyana has to live with. What occasion was ever completed in this land without being interrupted by blackouts?
The Peters Hall mandir officials had their generator, but what about the thousands of little churches, temples and mosques that have a special occasion, which don’t have a generator, and the electricity goes? The President addressed Parliament last Thursday and there was no reference to the end of this misery.
Once I live in Guyana (and I don’t plan to ever migrate), I will remain permanently nonplussed when the name Bharrat Jagdeo is mentioned. I can’t imagine why this country would continue to tolerate Jagdeo in politics. The frightening thing about Jagdeo and a number of PPP leaders is that they want to administer Guyana again.
How do you explain that when as president, Jagdeo invested 60 million American dollars to build a Marriott Hotel, when since 1980, electricity supply in this country has bordered on non-existence. To date, no journalist has asked this man to offer his thoughts on this morbid anomaly. If blackouts began in 1980 (when I came back in 1984, they were in full swing), then in 2011, when Jagdeo demitted office as president, a majority in the population grew up with constant blackouts.
In 2011, all Guyanese who were 30 years of age never saw a continuous delivery of electricity by their government over a sustained period, and by that I mean continuously for one full month without interruptions. It would mean then, that all of those persons with primary education right up to the tertiary level would have endured irritating blackouts during studies. That is a fact, because I have a daughter that went from nursery to tertiary and suffered terrible moments of blackouts throughout her education life in her country.
Would it not be literally fascinating to hear Jagdeo’s explanation? Why US$60M was seen as more important to be assigned to building a hotel rather than putting the money into electricity stabilization? What is disturbing is that the gentleman has never attempted an answer. But there has to be an answer. What was the Marriott supposed to do for Guyana that made it a priority over investment in electricity generation? The analysis is simple. There cannot be a justification.
The Marriott was built for very narrow, conspiratorial purposes that have nothing to do with the economy. For me, once Guyana continues to have blackouts, then I think the politics of the PPP should be rejected by this nation. How can any rational, sane human stand up and listen to Sam Hinds, Donald Ramotar, Roger Luncheon, Gail Teixeira, Clement Rohee pleading to be voted back into power, when they were in power (except Jagdeo) since 1992 and after 2015 when the PPP lost power, and Guyana still suffers from deplorable and constant electricity withdrawal?
Ramotar did not have power after 1992, but in that year, he became head of the ruling party, then held the presidency for three years. Jagdeo had presidential power for twelve years. Why did these politicians not stop the electricity horror show? Do you know since 2015 there have been literally hundreds of letters by these names referred to above (Ramotar has a letter published two days ago) and in none of those missives has there been even a brief attempt to explain why the electricity crisis was not solved.
And these very people are contesting power in 2020. They are asking to lead Guyana again. Can one imagine Gail Teixeira, who became a Cabinet member in 1992 and ended her reign in power in 2015 as governance advisor to the president, is contesting the PPP’s presidential slot for the 2020 elections? When Teixeira became a cabinet minister in 1992, Guyana was plagued with horrible blackouts. When Teixeira left office in May 2015, the horror train of darkness was still riding all over Guyana.
None of the other contestants has had power longer than Ms. Teixeira. Is it not the decent thing for Ms. Teixeira to finally do – offer us some reasoning as to why her government after 23 years in power failed to supply the country with electricity?
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