This is either sheer PPP bashing, dishonesty or ignorance

May 24, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Ask me which one I think it is. My automatic answer is that this was deliberate anti-PPP criticism. Last Saturday, the Stabroek News featured a guest editorial. The topic was one that has been exhausted in this country – the need to change the harsh penalties for possession of small amount of marijuana.
All the newspapers over the past 10 years are filled with arguments for the changes. But the guest editorialist (herein after referred to as GE) took a different line. The reason for the APNU+AFC not pursuing the changes is glossed over and the inaction of the PPP is highlighted. Let’s quote what GE wrote: “But foot dragging by what was said to be senior coalition leadership meant the bill was never debated.”
This description is appallingly misleading and deliberately deceiving. It is political propaganda that needs demolishing. I believe GE is someone that is either carrying a hatred for the PPP or fanaticism for either the PNC or AFC or both. Any schoolboy can define foot-dragging. It means being tardy, slow to act, to keep delaying. Foot dragging has no connection even remotely to the act of rejection. They have completely different meanings.
Here now is the origin and death of the Marijuana Amendment Bill. The Bill was composed by two lawyers – Nigel Hughes and Mark Waldron shortly after the APNU+AFC came to power. It was a 2015 election promise. I spoke on the same platform with Basil Williams at Paradise on the ECD and the promise was mentioned by both Williams and me.
The Hughes/Waldron Bill was put on the order paper of the National Assembly to be debated in the name of Michael Carrington of the AFC. Here are manifestations of the guillotining of the Bill. First, President Granger on Wednesday, April 30, 2016 on the state sponsored programme, The Public Interest, said these words to his interviewer: “I would not counsel the use of marijuana by young people and anybody…we should be careful not to adopt policies practised by other countries which have stronger regulatory frameworks.”
Secondly, on May 23, 2018, Parliamentarian, Michael Carrington told HGPTV Nightly News that APNU+AFC’s Chief Whip, Amna Ally had instructed him since 2016 to withdraw the Bill because President Granger was uncomfortable with it. Michael Carrington is a very personal friend and repeated that revelation to me long before May 2018. He told me he is committed to explaining to anyone why the Bill was scuttled. Thirdly, on Friday, July 6, 2018, then Attorney General, Basil Williams told the media that changing the anti-narcotic law, should involve the holding of a referendum on the issue.
What the above items clearly show was that from 2016, the decision was taken to remove the Bill from the order paper. The Bill died before it was born. Interestingly, the extirpation of the amendment was never publicly discussed by anyone in the AFC leadership from 2016 even though the Bill was composed by then AFC’s chairman, Nigel Hughes and sponsored in the House by AFC, parliamentarian, Carrington.
The pathetic state of journalism in Guyana was on display from 2016. No journalist asked Hughes, Carrington or Moses Nagamootoo, who was leader of the government’s business in the House, any question from 2016 until May 2018 when it was raised by Carrington on HGPTV in May 2018 as to why the Bill was not being read in the House. But not only was the mediocrity of journalism depressing, no young leader in the PNC, AFC, and WPA fought for the rebirth of the Bill. To think these kinds of politicians are still wondering why they lost the 2020 election. They know very well why they did.
Here is a list of 10 articles in sequential order that traces from 2016 the refusal to table the amendment and eventual rejection of same in the House by the APNU+AFC regime.
1 – Sunday, May 8, 2016, “President Granger misses some points about copying.”
2 – Monday, July 1, 2016, “Everyday I see how stupid this country is.”
3 – Friday, February 3, 2017, “Has Granger copied wrongly with the parking meters?”
4 – Thursday, May 25, 2017, “Edward Said and 51 years of failure in Guyana.”
5 – Sunday, May 27, 2018, “The Khemraj Ramjattan I once knew and admired.”
6 – Wednesday, May 30, 2018, “Ganja law: African Guyanese and their political leadership.”
7 – Wednesday, June 16, 2018, “Two East Indian politicians and the PNC’s leadership.”
8 – Wednesday, July 4, 2018, “Eureka: The CARICOM boss discovers Guyana is an
illogical land.”
9 – Sunday, July 7, 2019, “If Guyanese accept this, then they are the world’s stupidest people.”
10 – Thursday, September 19, 2020, “Barbados proves that the PNC leaders are fraud.”
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)