Dear Editor,
Now that Local Government Elections are upon us, President David Granger has made several trips to Lethem, Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) in recent weeks, and is due to return there again on October 14 for the “official launch” of Lethem Town Week. This is just another manufactured event to utilise State funds to campaign.
I expect he will be giving away bicycles as he did in Anna Regina in an effort to win votes. Then earlier, the President going to Skeldon to distribute bicycles to children in the middle of a campaign is nothing short of obscene.
For he could have easily gone to the schools to distribute the bicycles instead of taking the children to make up numbers at his campaign rally.
And a compassionate President would have also taken the severance pay to the thousands of sugar workers he displaced, most of whom can’t even provide food for their families.
Then Granger has the cohones to tell the gathering at Anna Regina – a People’s Progressive Party (PPP) stronghold, that on November 12, they should elect visionary leaders, “It is not just a passive town council where people just get elected and they just sit down… They have to look after public services and public health…
They must look after sanitation and keep the canals clean. They have to look after security and economic growth.
Elect someone who is multitalented and willing to work, not because they belong to a political party but because they are prepared to work.” If Granger had adhered to this same principle, the voters would never have elected him and his Ministers.
Over the last few months, a huge number of trips were made by Ministers of Government to Mabaruma, Region One (Barima-Waini); Lethem, Region Nine; Mahdia, Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and other interior locations ostensibly to do Government business with sometimes three chartered aircraft seen on the ground.
But in reality, they’re there to do political work and to distribute the People’s National Congress newspapers – The New Nation.
So, the question submitted to the National Assembly by PPP Member of Parliament, Pauline Sukhai-Campbell that was disallowed by the Speaker, is not without merit. This Government needs to stop the shameless abuse of State funds to finance their political campaigns.
During the pre-election period leading up to the last Local Government Election in 2016, it is estimated that A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change cost the Treasury almost $50 million flying campaign workers and others to the Lethem and Mabaruma municipalities alone.
Where are the international organisations and the local groups who used to talk about abuse of resources during the previous Administration? Cat got your tongue?
Harry Gill
PPP/C Member of
Parliament
