Nagamootoo should accept that Govt has failed its electorate

Dear Editor,
It is now approaching the fourth year since the coalition Government assumed office and the Guyanese masses are astoundingly disappointed by the increasingly high levels of corruption which is being perpetrated by this Government whose campaign platform was based on the eradication of corruption by removing the previous PPP/C Government. Some were gullible enough to accept this even though a casual perusal would have exposed the fact to them that it is the same old PNC which dominates the APNU and you cannot expect a drastic transformation from the 28 years of thievery, mismanagement, and institutionalised corruption.
I cannot help but recall Moses Nagamootoo’s startling ‘political theory’ which he revealed in January 2016 at Queens, New York. He said, “you should have a President for only one term or five years after which the leader should be changed since the ‘thieving’ starts in the second term”. He further added that “in 50 years, we have only changed Government twice…you have to think about changing Government as quickly as possible as you can, as periodically as you can, because thieving is a disease”.
Now, it is ironic that Nagamootoo failed to recognise the endemic corruption which has engulfed his Government almost as soon as they took over the seats of Government. He was part of the Cabinet’s decision to pay themselves between 50-100 per cent wage increases supposedly to remove the temptation to be involved in “thievery” with his salary, perks and eventual pension greatly surpassing that of former President Bharrat Jagdeo. The masses were given an increased dose of the illusionary “good life”, our standard of living continues to plunge while more than 30,000 persons became jobless with many communities being transformed into ‘zombie zones’ overnight.
While it may be that Nagamootoo was targeting a third term for Jagdeo and was referring to him, it cannot be so interpreted when he said that, “you have to think about changing Government as quickly as possible”.
The coalition was already in Government, hence he must be taken to mean that if a Government does not perform well according to the expectations of the electorate then it must be changed. Therefore, this is exactly what the majority of the representatives did on December 21, 2018. This is what ‘Sovereignty of the people’ means. The Constitution, in Article 106 (6), provides for this – to remove a Government if it is corrupted and not performing to expectations by way of a “no-confidence motion”.
In just four years, corruption has eaten away many of the economic gains made by the PPP/C Government. It must be recalled that our economy, under the PNC, was bankrupt and 95 per cent of our GDP went to pay debts. Today, our US reserve which the PPP/C Government has managed to accumulate over the years has fallen by over 50 per cent while the cost of living has spiralled with no solution in sight.
It has been documented that the APNU/AFC Government has been involved in more corruption in its four-year tenure compared to the old PNC Government, beginning from the undisclosed cost of inauguration ceremonies of the President, the D’Urban Park ‘thievery’, the US$18 million signing bonus, the $30 billion GuySuCo bond, the GPHC single sourcing of $605 million in drugs, the Sussex Street ‘Condom’ bond, the Demerara Harbour Bridge feasibility study, the ‘rehabilitation’ of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, the blatant breaches of the procurement laws to facilitate bribery and ‘kickbacks’, the awarding of contracts to cronies like the awarding of the Corentyne Highway road slashing and cleaning, the rental of Broomes’ mansion, the Annette Ferguson affair and others too numerous to mention. It has also been one scandal after another, a media recently disclosed a number of these.
Nagamootoo should now accede to the fact that his Government has failed the electorate who have now decided that a ‘change in Government’ is now vital and the ‘disease’ eradicated for the nation’s survival!

Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf