Lawrence embraces party paramountcy and dictatorship – she must resign

Dear Editor,
“The only friends I got is PNC so the only people I gon give wuk to is PNC and right now I looking for a doctor who can talk Spanish or Portuguese and ah want one that is PNC”. No matter how much you spin it, these are hatred-filled, racist words spewed by the Chairman of the People’s National Congress (PNC), Ms. Volda Lawrence, who also happens to be a senior Government Member of Parliament and the Senior Minister of Public Health. Ms. Lawrence, in response to media inquiries, has since stood by these remarks to supporters of the PNC, an audience made up of Afro-Guyanese.
Ms. Lawrence chided government officials who have not fully implemented APNU+AFC’s policy to give jobs and contracts to PNC members, supporters and friends, a policy emphasising that the only qualification for jobs and contracts is PNC-membership, support and friendship, not merit.
Ms. Lawrence reiterated unequivocally the present PNC version of the 1974 Sophia Declaration of party paramouncy. She bluntly outlined the PNC’s racist perspective of governance in Guyana, clearly defining a policy of political victimization, governing with brute force and ignorance. Ms. Lawrence boldly reiterated the PNC DNA – bullyism, discrimination, nepotism and cronyism. Several days after, there is total silence from the Alliance for Change (AFC) and the Working People’s Alliance (WPA). I am not shocked that Prime Minister Nagamootoo, Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan, Natural Resources Minister, Raphael Trotman, all AFC leaders, the PNC Social Cohesion Minister, and Amna Ally, are silent. But I am deeply disappointed that the WPA’s Dr. Rupert Roopnarine, a senior Minister in APNU+AFC, is silent.
The right thing to do is for Ms. Lawrence to resign as a Minister. The right thing for President Granger is to fire her. Does she not grasp that she is Minister of Public Health and a member of a government that serves all Guyanese? Outside of the obnoxious governance guidelines she outlined, Ms. Lawrence has previously provided enough reasons to disqualify her as a Minister. This is the same lady that defined rape by an uncle as a family matter, referring to it as “deflowering”. As a Minister, she was caught on video violently assaulting an innocent citizen during a protest at Red House. As a Minister, she has presided over a ministry responsible for billions of dollars in corrupt transactions.
Her dark, menacing, ominous statements were equally moronic, mewing, mephitic, reckless and reprehensible. Ms. Lawrence declared war, demanding her colleagues in government fully implement the old PNC policy of jobs and contracts for card-carrying PNC members. She is emphatic that Guyana belongs to, is by, and for PNC members, supporters and friends. Ms. Lawrence essentially formalised a policy of discrimination as the APNU+AFC’s blueprint for governance, something Guyana has suffered from since May 2015 and between 1964 and 1992.
Ms. Lawrence’s declaration is a version of the 1974 Sophia Declaration of party paramountcy made by the then Prime Minister, Forbes Burnham, at Congress Place. It is consistent with the way APNU+AFC has governed Guyana since May 2015. Just recently Kaieteur News’ Peeping Tom listed major appointments of APNU+AFC since May 2015, insightfully revealing these appointments were based purely on ethnic and political considerations, abandoning any pretense of merit. Ms. Lawrence’s statements provide the rationale for why hundreds of Guyanese public servants were fired since May 2015 – they did not fit ethnic and political considerations acceptable to the PNC.
Ms. Lawrence’s verbal napalm is a consequence of the 2018 LGE debacle where the Guyanese people overwhelmingly rejected the PNC. It followed another version made by her other senior colleague, Minister of Presidency, Joe Harmon who earlier had said the time for niceness is over and that those who are not friends of the PNC will face the sting of the scorpion – you are either with us or against us. These statements followed the PPP thrashing of both the PNC and the AFC by a margin of 61 per cent (PPP) to 34 per cent (PNC) and 4 per cent (AFC).
The closure of four sugar estates, firing of more than 7,000 sugar workers, unconscionable delay in paying their severance, freeze of wages for sugar workers with no increase since 2015, increasing lease and drainage fees for rice farmers, removing agriculture subsidies etc, firing of 2,000 Amerindian Community Resource Persons, are clearly part of the formula outlined in Ms. Lawrence’s verbal napalm. Hundreds of public servants lost their jobs on the basis of their race or their perceived political affiliation. Hundreds have been employed with ethnic and political affiliation as the only qualifications. In the meantime, APNU+AFC (PNC) has ratcheted-up political victimisation through trumped-up criminal charges against former PPP Ministers and government officials.
Metastasizing dictatorship has become a centipede, taking over all aspects of our lives. Citizens are justifiably horrified by Ms. Lawrence’s deeming the majority of Guyanese second-class citizens. We can either speak out now or become pawns and victims in the evils of dictatorship. Decent citizens who care about our country, regardless of race and ethnicity, religion or political affiliation, cannot sit this one out. We must take a stand – silence is too perilous an option.

Dr. Leslie Ramsammy