Dear Editor,
In Stabroek News of April 8, 2019, there was an opinion piece from one GKH Lall which sought to instruct Mr Mohamed I Ali (executive member of the PPP) upon which plank he should jump. What campaign is Mr GKH Lall talking about?
There can be no official campaign until general elections are called by Mr Lall’s candidate, Mr David Granger. It was Mr GHK Lall who said in the 2015 campaign that Mr Granger was polite and acceptable (see interview with Chris Ram) and offered his support to him. That is his right as a dual citizen and voter and beneficiary of the Treasury, thanks to his political and economic sponsors in the PNC. But please do not play with the people’s intelligence and pretend that you mean well for Mr Mohammed I Ali or the people of Guyana.
This nation is yet to see the outcome of this politeness that Mr Lall was referring to in 2015. Is the word polite now being re-defined by Mr Lall? Is it polite to ignore the Guyana Constitution and not follow the rule of law? Is it polite to unilaterally impose on the nation a GECOM Chairman who has revealed himself as nothing else but a political apparatchik of Congress Place? Is it polite to supervise the greatest acts of corruption in the history of Guyana that took place between 2016 and 2019 and not do a thing as Executive President? Is it polite to be untruthful to the youths by stealing more than 30,000 jobs for them in three years in defiance of your promises in 2015?
I was in Guyana in March 2019 and asked Mr Mohammed I Ali some hard questions. One of those questions was – Why are you (Mr Ali) not more on TV explaining your policy measures? In his wisdom, this was his answer. He asked me – Has an elections date been announced?
Mr Ali further told me that at this time he is listening directly to the ordinary people in the villages and urban wards of Guyana on a 1-2-1 basis. His mission right now is to use the data gathered from those conversations to craft a menu of human development policies which can be launched swiftly once his party wins power. The common theme he is hearing is the need to create new jobs sustainably and this is what he plans to do when the occasion presents itself. He outlined for me in detail how he is going to create these 50,000 jobs over 5 years and from my international experience, I am convinced in my conviction that it is highly possible.
What it needs is proper programme management of the plan, which is a skill set sorely lacking in Team Granger. So what appears like rocket science to these inexperienced and incompetent minds in Team Granger, is what the rest of the world is doing every second of the day – creating new jobs.
When I was a Project Manager on a CDB Project, I had a chance to observe Mr Ali’s skill set and from what I saw, he is a person who has real project management competence and skills, unlike Mr Granger. This skillset served him well when he accelerated and project managed the PPP’s most successful public policy – housing. What the PPP did was to expand the stock of land available for housing by over 100,000 house lots in under 20 years. More than half of those lands now have real homes on them with real families in those homes who are on a pathway to building real new wealth with their real equity. That is the sort of human development that continues to evade these friends of Mr GHK Lall.
I was advised that Mr Ali will be telling his story nationally when Mr Lall’s candidate, Mr Granger (who has now been certified after 3 years as a human development failure), calls the elections. Until such time, Mr Ali told me he plans to continue with his original plan – deepening his direct bond with the masses.
Let me share a real-life example. When I visited Berbice in March 2019, two village teams told me they wanted to meet Mr Ali. I telephoned him and the very next day he was walking in those mixed Guyanese villages listening to the plight of the people and even sat down under a bottom house and had a meal with one of the families.
So there is a method to the strategy and let the record speak, Mr Mohammed I Ali is not alone in this struggle to ensure that democracy is kept alive. There are thousands of us who are working tirelessly to protect this democracy won by Dr Jagan in 1992. Let the record show, history and time are on Mohammed I Ali’s side. Can we say the same for Mr GHK Lall and friends in Congress Place?
Yours faithfully,
Sasenarine Singh
