Acontortionist is an artiste who is able to bend his body in ways that seem impossible. It is an art of exquisite beauty, mind boggling at times. The A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) seems very determined to be a CONTORTIONIST Government, except their version of the contortionist is ugly, vulgar and despicable. Their contortion of the truth is hideous, intended only to fool people. APNU/AFC as a coalition Government is guilty, as well as APNU and AFC in their own right, twisting like an American pretzel to confuse people and distort the truth.
On Monday, Guyana observed Labour Day. APNU/AFC preached to workers that Government sees labour from the perspective of “bread and justice”. But the mind-boggling contortions by APNU/AFC cannot hide that workers in Guyana have been denied both “bread and justice”. Workers were promised double digit pay increases, 20 per cent and above in the first 100 days of the Government. After more than 700 days, such pay increases appear to be fool’s gold.
The APNU/AFC justified their broken promise to workers by first telling workers that they inherited a bankrupt Treasury, but then the Cabinet turned around and gave themselves between 50 to 100 per cent pay increases and increasing all their allowances. They then informed the workers that they must be patient since the APNU/AFC must invest in infrastructure first. Now they tell workers that their failure to keep the promise of 20 per cent and more pay increases for sugar workers and public servants is because doing so would make the budget deficit too large. Incidentally the deficit is now the official reason for the increase in more than 200 taxes and VAT on education, water and electricity.
Sugar workers have not received a wage increase in two successive years – 2015 and 2016, this with a backdrop that APNU/AFC promised them during the election campaign a minimum of 20 per cent increase. It appears on Labour Day 2017 that sugar workers will for the third successive year be denied a wage increase. The same sugar workers in 2015 had the lowest rate for their annual production incentive since the API was introduced in 1946 and was totally denied their API in 2016. The API seems lost for 2017 also. Many sugar workers at Wales who lost their jobs when Wales was closed have been denied their legal right of a severance payment. Meanwhile, more than 2000 sugar workers have already lost their jobs and after 2017, another 8000 are likely to be unemployed. If this is their version of the contortionist, it is despicable.
They closed Wales Sugar Estate, no ands, ifs or buts. They are in the process of closing Enmore/LBI and Rose Hall Sugar Estates. Skeldon Sugar Estate is essentially closed, perhaps to give it away in a sweetheart deal. They claimed Albion, Blairmont and Uitvlugt will remain open, but they also hinted that Uitvlugt is iffy. This rapid downsizing and degrading of the sugar industry in Guyana have occurred in less than two years and does fit an APNU’s declaration in 2014 that sugar ought to be closed. But their contortionist exhibition try to change the narrative insisting sometimes that sugar was being re-engineered, at other times being consolidated (Granger’s version) and yet other times being diversified. Which one is it?
Even as APNU/AFC is in a spin with their vulgar contortions involving workers, the sugar industry, the rice industry, the economy as a whole, spiraling crime, rampant corruption, they are caught in another web of lies involving the construction of the monument to honour the arrival of Indians in Guyana, the first Indian immigrants in the Western Hemisphere. After the collapse of the structure to house the monument, APNU/AFC sought to link the contract to the Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) Regional Democratic Council. It was a lie. It was an APNU/AFC contract. Caught with their deceit, they tried to distant themselves by pretending they did not know who was responsible for the contract. Some pointed to the Public Infrastructure Ministry which denied it was in charge. It turns out it is the Education Ministry. Why is it the country must jump hoops to find out which Ministry was in charge of this contract. We still do not know who is the contractor or the engineer.
I suspect if I had the luxury of space, I will fill the allotted number of pages this newspaper is allowed for today with examples of vulgar contortions and still be left with many examples that space will not allow us to describe. Actually, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If I were to begin writing about their twisting and spinning the facts on VAT on education, the parking meter fiasco, the GPHC $606 million contract or the $15 million per month warehouse rental, we surely will have space for nothing else in today’s paper and yet all of this still represent the tip of the iceberg.
