…Ramjattan
We all know the saying, “There are none so blind as those who will not see”, but its corollary, “The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know”, spells it out even clearer. No one would be able to convince your Eyewitness that the Minister of Public Security isn’t aware of the crime tsunami sweeping over our country. He’s just showing how far some fellas would sink in advancing their own interests.
The PNC were elected in 2015 primarily because they threw mud at the PPP about “corruption”; which they’ve been unable to prove even though they did their darndest, and fielded dozens of military types in their leadership, which they assured the nation would guarantee a reduction in the crime rate.
Instead, notwithstanding Ramjattan’s protestations and his tweaking of statistics, the rate has skyrocketed northwards.
Every civil society group around has asked Ramjattan to show some leadership for the assets under his Ministry, which is tasked with keeping law and order in the country, but to no avail. The most recent was the Private Sector Commission. After his concocted statistical ploys were dissected and shown to be blatantly propagandistic exercises, Ramjattan changed his tune. He now started telling everyone that compared to crime in neighbouring countries, things weren’t so bad here!! Guess he figures that crime wafts across the border through the air, and he can’t do anything about that!!
But the US State Department just released their annual report on crime in Guyana, for the benefit of their citizens who might be visiting Guyana. They didn’t pull any punches: “Criminal activity, including murder and armed robbery, is common in Guyana. Armed robberies can occur in businesses, shopping districts, and in hotels.” Criminal activity is common in Guyana. Will Ramjattan be sending the US Embassy his statistics on crimes in neighbouring countries?
Well, the Americans were very specific, and even named neighbourhoods. “U.S. citizens should remain alert and exercise particular caution in the neighborhoods of Agricola, Tiger Bay, Albouystown, Stabroek Market, and the seawall east of Vlissengen Road, due to criminal activity; the remaining seawall, National Park, and Bourda Market have the same recommendations after dark. U.S. citizens are advised to avoid walking in Georgetown alone and after dark.”
Now, Ramjattan also knows these are high crime locales, but has he ever directed his Police to develop their intelligence-gathering network – read “snitches” – in these areas to clean them up? Maybe he should’ve been the Minister to go with Buju Banton into Tiger Bay and Abouystown — to big-up Roger Khan?
Finally, is it coincidental that, only now that elections are in the air, two gangs of bandits were taken out by Ramjattan’s police?
…PNC’s own rhetoric
One surreal aspect of PNC politics after 2015 has been the direct refutation through their actions of the high-sounding rhetoric they’d spouted in their years in the Opposition about morality, probity, ethics, and principles that the PPP supposedly lacked. Didn’t they realise they’d be held to the standards they’d implicitly set?? But the fish starts stinking at the top…and all of us now see the chasm between the rhetoric and reality in the actions of their leader, David Granger.
How can he have any claim to “integrity” when, with criminality erupting around him like fragmentation landmines, he’s yet to discipline, much less dismiss, a single miscreant. Take his Minister of Public Infrastructure; when will Granger even rap him on the knuckles?? The man’s been dogged by corruption every time he opens his mouth: US$9000 deposited in his personal account when he claimed MARAD advanced funds for his trip to China; now his sole-sourced contract on the DHB was paid from the latter’s Asphalt Plant account?
Are these his piggy banks?
…funding
$40 million and counting was spent by the PNC on concert tickets to the Buju Banton show alone. In the meantime, Mahdia, Black Bush Polder and most of the Essequibo remain flooded.
Can’t the PNC Government match their Buju spending with flood relief?
