Dear Editor,
I have taken note of the APNU/AFC’s criticisms of the Dr Irfaan Ali-led PPP/C Government’s management of the country’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. They have taken a step further by bringing forth a No-Confidence Motion to support the same narrative. Guyanese are smart people and just as how they have seen through every APNU/AFC untruth ranging from 33 not being the majority of 65 to them being fraudulently removed from office, they will see through this latest charade.
We are all aware that the APNU/AFC continues to put forward its erroneous claim that the Minister of Health has been doing a poor job in terms of managing the pandemic in Guyana. They support this by saying that when they were in Government the COVID-19 numbers were significantly lower. But those numbers were clearly influenced by the deliberate policy of low testing that they employed, which was rigidly enforced by Volda Lawrence on whose desks the test results had to go before even the persons tested were made aware of their status. This isn’t the case now as the PPP/C Government when it took office in August significantly increased the amount of testing being done and with that reality obviously would come more detection of positive cases.
Further, I put forth this question to the coalition: if their management of the pandemic was so good and the numbers were so low as they claim then why was there a need for them to spend $1.6 billion on a COVID-19 hospital? What about the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation’s (PAHO/WHO) projection in early April 2020 that cases in Guyana could reach as much as 20,000 by May 5 of that same year?
The answer is very simple. Despite which Government came into office, the COVID-19 numbers would have been far more than what it was at the beginning of 2020. Even if the APNU/AFC were successful in defying the will of the electorate in 2020, COVID-19 would have affected Guyanese far worse given their dismal record in dealing with the pandemic in its initial stages.
I am positive that many other right-thinking Guyanese would agree with me when I say that the PPP/C Government has demonstrated far better management of Guyana’s fight against COVID-19. In fact, it was this Government who procured PPEs, provided incentives to those in the frontline of the fight as well as relief to the ordinary Guyanese. They have also undertaken a robust vaccination campaign, the success of which the APNU/AFC is trying to stymie. As such, I find the APNU/AFC’s stance and its latest publicity stunt in the form of a No-Confidence Motion to be ridiculous.
Yours truly,
Alvin Hamilton
