Government should repeal Green’s Pension Bill for his “rigging” comments

Dear Editor,
Mr. Alexander of the Burnham Foundation, who works very hard at helping us not forget Guyana’s Founder-Rigger, Mr. L. F. S. Burnham, is helping to make sure the PPP wins again in 2025. Any time a PNC person invokes Burnham’s name, people get diarrhoea remembering how Burnham’s 28 years of dictatorship have destroyed our people and country, leading to the great exodus and scattering of our people all over the world.
Why would anyone want to keep the memory of Burnham alive, when that fella was a zero, and not a hero? What is worse is PNC strongman Mr. Green, the mention of whose name caused people to tremble when he was Burnham’s henchman, has reportedly called on the Burnham loyalists to resort to rigging to get out the PPP. Mr. Green likes to add “Elder” to his name when he writes letters in the papers. What is Mr. Green an elder of? Whose elder? Most Guyanese, especially PPP supporters, do not see Mr. Green as an elder. They may wonder if he means “elder rigger” given his association and his occupying senior positions under Burnham’s dictatorship.
Mr. Green would have done well if he had instead said the PNC never rigged and that he did not participate in the rigging. His remarks leave questions. We fully understand the context of Green’s comments!
The PNC should always hang their heads in shame trying to rig the 2020 election in full view of international observers. Instead of renouncing rigging and apologizing for the PNC years of rigging, here we have a PNC elder seemingly advocating for more rigging to get rid of what he calls “…these devils, these bastards, these demons that we have.”
This alone should cause the Government to repeal the bill that the PNC passed to give Green a special pension, probably 10 times that of a graduate teacher. The majority of Guyanese never supported a special pension for Green or the nation’s second highest honour. Green might be in the hall of fame of the Burnham Foundation, but the majority of Guyanese may not have warm sentiments towards Green. Many wonder why the PPP did not move quickly to repeal Green’s Pension Bill in 2020 when they got in.
Regarding Mr. Alexander’s letter, that we should embrace Mr Hughes’s proposition that politics be restarted from ground zero, Mr. Hughes lost much credibility when he argued that 33 was not the majority of 65, although that was the basis on which the PNC occupied the Government. That may have caused him the Senior Counsel honour, although he is well deserving. Not sure what Mr. Hughes is advocating. I am wondering if he would think zero is greater than 2. (See “Burnham Foundation embraces proposition of Mr Hughes that Guyana’s politics be restarted from Ground-Zero,” SN, Feb. 24, 2024).

Sincerely,
M Singh