…of AFC
Raphael Trotman is the leader of the AFC. He’s always seen himself as THE leader. Remember his refusal to move aside in 2011 for Ramjattan? Anyhow, he beat out Ramjattan at the last AFC party elections – so he can speak authoritatively on matters AFC. And on some other matters, too! Remember the “Nassau Accord” he signed off on with PNC leader David Granger – just before the 2015 elections?
Responding to the observations of several political commentators that the AFC has fulfilled Ramjattan’s pre-coalition prediction that the AFC will become “dead meat” if it coalesces with the PNC, Trotman opined he’s “satisfied” with the party’s performance!! Well, of course he is!! He’s been the architect of most of that “performance”!! What else does anyone expect him to say??
Apart from him whistling in the dark, what else could make him give such a cockeyed assessment? Well, he’s obviously set a very low bar for himself and his party. Your Eyewitness knows being West Indian and all that, and Trotman should know while such a low bar may be good for doing the LIMBO, it ain’t going to do anything for political survival in Guyana!!
The biggest hope Guyanese had for their country’s turnaround was to get a fair share of the oil that Exxon discovered just BEFORE the 2015 elections. Given responsibility for natural resources, Trotman was blown out of the water by Exxon’s lawyers when he headed the renegotiation of the oil contract. He gave away our inheritance for a mess of pottage. Guyana is now the laughing stock in the oil fraternity – for giving away its wealth and ensuring that we’ll remain as the shithole just above Haiti in the Western Hemisphere.
Then there’s the disastrous coalition Government’s intervention in the sugar industry. The AFC had inveigled more than the expected number of sugar workers in Berbice away from the PPP – to put the PNC/APNU over the tape by a nose. So how could Trotman be ‘satisfied” when he just admitted his party agreed that – apart from firing 5000 Berbician cane cutters – it’s OK for only half their severance monies be paid, a month late?? Does he remember that’s exactly the number of votes separating the PPP from his coalition?
But looks like Trotman, like Fidel Castro, is of the longue duree school since he claims he “relies on history and not critics”. Castro, of course, famously thundered to the UN General Assembly: “History will absolve me!!” Trotman can take the long-term view since he knows on which side his bread is buttered – and it ain’t from the AFC side!! He’s returned home.
Ramjattan and Nagamootoo should worry about the smell of “dead meat”!
…on GuySuCo’s valuation
Well…well…well. The Government made a big to do about getting an “international accounting firm” – Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) – to valuate GuySuCo’s four closed estates… in preparation for selling them off. The effect they wanted to create, of course, is to suggest everything will be above board and hunky dory on their sell-off – since presumably “international” accounting firms” are purer than Caesar’s wife!!
The local ones they know very well – having hired most of them to conduct audits to PROVE the PPP had “siphoned off billions and billions” from the Treasury. Is it because no PPP member’s been jailed to date the reason why the Government now went foreign? Anyhow, it’s clear the Government forgot about the role Arthur Andersen – one of the BIG FIVE in the US then – played in the US$100 billion fraud by Enron!
Foreign accounting firms are also human – and possibly venal. PwC was just banned in India for their role in the billion dollar Satyam scandal.
So why should we believe GuySuCo won’t be given away like our oil?
…on City Council
Another poor citizen wrote to complain about the Mayor and Town Clerk’s “jet set” life style – combined with their willingness to tax the citizens of Georgetown for the said excesses.
Seems “hope” beats eternal…
