President Granger believes that the coalition deserves a “Grade A” for its performance, or in his words, “cleaning up the mess” inherited from the previous administration. But it’s difficult not to find such an assertion presumptuous. Quite audacious if you ask me.
Through a local electronic media source, Granger insisted that the “progress [the coalition has] made in the last 21 months” was “phenomenal in terms of trying to make Guyana a law governed country” and that “the Guyanese people could look forward to a much improved quality of governance” by the end of his Government’s first term.
What law-governed country he refers to remains a mystery, considering the multiplication of fatal crimes and their degeneration into forms of brutality we’ve hardly witnessed in recent years. Granger’s best response as to why Guyana, under his leadership, is under siege by brazen, murderous criminals, is to blame the former PPP/C administration. With a straight face, the President conveniently limits the current crime situation to the actions of those children who lived through the crime wave which hit Guyana in the early 2000s. Unsurprisingly, and in a manner befitting his penchant for rewriting history, Granger omits the basis on which the crime wave occurred, including the PNC’s involvement in arming criminals and fuelling the ethnic turmoil which marked this period of violence. His adamancy in admitting the Government’s current ineptitude in containing and repressing crime in Guyana, reflects a vision narrowed to one that is merely delusional and incomprehensible for a President who claims to want to wipe out crime. The resulting myopia is one which focuses on crime as a product of narcotics when in fact, crime is pillared by poverty. And it is this flawed approach in governance that has caused the steady increase in crime since 2015.
The people’s frustration is the best barometer to measure and grade the Government’s performance, and the vigilantes bred by the said frustration are one of the indicators of the public’s lack of confidence in the rule of law and the police force. This decaying governance is reflected not only in the laissez-passer modus operandi of the Granger administration, which allows blatant corruption to attack democracy across the country in favour of party paramountcy, cronyism and nepotism, but is also demonstrated through the uneducated disdain of coalition leaders for the plight of the small woman and man.
One will not revisit the counterproductive measures inflicted on human development and traditional income earning sectors, but instead will look to the attitudes of two coalition leaders in the persons of PNC member and corrupt Mayor of Georgetown, Patricia Chase-Green who continues to trample civil rights and democracy, and AFC Region 3 Councillor, Mandy Sookdeo who was actively part of the vigilante that beat a petty thief to death in Good Hope just last week. This is the vision of Granger’s coalition members in a country where the economy has shrunk by almost half in less than two years (despite having attained stability with a 3-7% growth for the eight consecutive years preceding Granger’s installation); where poverty, paranoia and fear have birthed vigilantes; where loss of jobs continue to affect all sectors of the economy; where social disparities linked to irrational austerity measures are increasing; where corruption doesn’t bother hiding its face and where the growing number of protests are being backhanded by a Government that gives not two cents about democracy. Reminiscent of another era isn’t it?
Indeed, it is Guyana’s regression that is “phenomenal” and so is its “quality of governance”. While continuity in governance entails highlighting the deficiencies inherited from previous administrations, but it also renders new governments responsible for enforcing stability and progress not only by remedying the weakness of past governments, but by building stronger institutions which allow for socio-economic and human development through inclusive and participatory democracy.
It is truly pathetic that all President Granger and his party loyalists can do when cornered by criticism for the coalition’s gigantesque failures, is lament about those of the PPP/C and in so doing admit their incompetence in correcting same, instead of answering why after less than two years in Government, the majority of Guyanese cannot wait to rush to the polls in 2020.
And it is in 2020 that the people will grade the Granger administration for the “phenomenal” disaster it has proven to be. Good luck with your Grade A President Granger. You won’t be getting mine.
