…In Housing
You just knew as soon as the PPP was attacked by the PNC-led Coalition APNU/AFC Government on their achievements in the area of housing, something wasn’t regulah! After all, the PNC did have as their aspirational slogan for all their years in office (how much was that again?) “Feed, HOUSE and Clothe the Nation”, didn’t they? And yet, by the time they were voted out in 1992, the nation had been hungry, homeless and naked for years! In 1980, the PNC estimated there was a deficit of 137,000 housing units!
In the area of housing, with Guyana having the lowest population density in the Caribbean, we’d witnessed under the PNC the largest increase in squatting in the entire history of the country. The houses they built were just for their insiders. They created more squatters than all those that squatted on Crown Lands after the abolition of slavery – when the planters just refused the freed slaves to occupy their previous hovels.
Whatever one may think of the PPP – and enough people figured they needed to be voted out of office –- you can’t deny they completely turned things around in the area of house lots and houses. Over 90,000 house lots were distributed and at least 60,000 houses constructed. And to get those houses built meant directing billions and billions from the banks into the sector. Guyana witnessed a building boom that helped to catalyse the economy into delivering a consistent 5% growth rate while soaking up the unemployment that was a holdover from the PNC days. The PPP provided the three things for growth: Incentives! Incentives! Incentives!
So, since the pure quantum of the houses provided couldn’t be attacked, the Government attacked the people who executed the housing revolution. This, of course, is the old logical fallacy – the ad hominem “argument”. Which is – if you can’t attack the argument, you simply sidetrack it and attack the PERSON making the argument. And, of course, against the background of their outrageous claims that the PPP’d siphoned off “$500 BILLION” from the public treasury – which $153 Million worth of audits can’t identify – they screamed “CORRUPTION!!!” in housing.
Now they’ve driven off several upstanding public servants with decades of service in Housing, we can see it was all a misdirection. All along they simply wanted to raid the treasury. Check out the story in today’s paper of one old-time PNC MP making millions and millions for supposedly “fixing” some turnkey houses. Sole sourcing, baby!!
In addition to the “corruption in housing” misdirection gambit…it’s also a projection of the larcenous intent residing in so many in the new government.
…on leftists
Now your Eyewitness has to secure his “humility” credentials…but he can’t help reminding you, Dear Readers, he did tell y’all the lynching party over in Brazil was all a setup. We’ve just heard Rousseff’s chief persecutor – oops! prosecutor – Tenner has now been removed for ….you guessed it! – corruption! The old oligarchy’s smelling blood so we’ll just have to see what device they’ll concoct to “impeach” the legally elected President of Brazil.
We’ve been following that story over in our southern neighbour for several reasons – one being that we might just be witnessing a whole new technique for effecting regime change. Have you noticed the similarities with the techniques the old oligarchic Opposition is also trying over in Venezuela to get rid of Maduro and his leftist govt? And it was all done in the same manner in Argentina when Macri replaced left-leaning Kirchner.
Now do you get the drift? Or is your old Eyewitness being paranoid about what happened to the PPP back in May 2015?
Visas everybody? Or just SOME bodies?
…on Harmon
Have you noticed the Muckraker’s singing a different tune now that its dirty smear job against Harmon’s gone sour? Way back, Burnham refused to be bought out by D’Aguiar “like a carton of used bottles”.
Looks like Harmon’s not gonna be bought like used newspapers!
