Picking sense…

…from BS

Moses Nagamootoo, who couldn’t even match the votes his shill picked up at the AFC popularity sweepstakes, was in fine form at the National Assembly the other night. Meaning he couldn’t help putting his foot into his mouth! Compensation for weaknesses can be a bitch!! In what had to be a carefully hatched plan by him, one obscure MP had asked for the salaries and percentage increases of Ministers and the President between 1998 and 2014 to be declared.

And – surprise! surprise! – Finance Minister Winston Jordan JUST HAPPENED to have them available to be rattled off. Yes Virginia – there is a Santa Claus!! And right on cue, up jumps PM Nagamootoo, performing the last role left to him, and announces the raises authorised by the PPP – in which he then was an MP and a member of the PPP Central Committee, mind you! — were “unconscionable and utterly disgraceful”!! The raises for the PPP President and Ministers amounted to over 386 per cent and 220 per cent respectively.

Imagine that! What Nagamootoo didn’t realise was he was setting himself up because he’s constitutionally incapable of doing otherwise! – speaking without following all the ramifications. Now if the PPP raises were so “unconscionable and utterly disgraceful” over the 17-year-period, you’d think those massive salaries would be enough for PM Moses Nagamootoo, his President and his new and expanded Cabinet, wouldn’t you??

But you see, Dear Reader, you’re not Moses Nagamootoo and his band of merry men! So, what did they do?? Why! Immediately grant themselves a 50 per cent raise on top of the “unconscionable and utterly disgraceful” salaries!! So, what do you call these new salaries? Disgusting and shameless? And how were the “disgusting and shameless” salaries explained? There were several; but the one that struck a chord was that these new Ministers had to get mega salaries so they wouldn’t be tempted to steal!!

Now, but that obviously means the original PPP salaries inherited by the coalition Government weren’t so “unconscionable and utterly disgraceful” after all! If they were, there’d be no need to inflate them so massively! Or, then could it be, the new lot were so avaricious, right off the bat, the handlers knew they had to build a bigger moat against corruption.

But from what we subsequently saw, it’s clear while the assumptions on the weakness of the flesh of the new Ministers-on-the-block were spot on – the inducement to fortify their flesh still wasn’t enough! Rotten to the core??

The question arises: if the average ministerial salary increase of the PPP over their 17 years was 13 per cent, what’s it gonna be for the PNC-led coalition that started off in YEAR ONE with 50 per cent!!??

Lord, have mercy!!

…from ideological cluelessness

Hydar Ally raised a hornet’s nest when he attempted to pronounce authoritatively on the ‘ideology’ of the PPP – which, as he fully well knows, is in a state of transition that is accelerated ever faster after their Essequibo Congress. It was not surprising that almost immediately he provoked reactions from both within and without the party.

The problem with fellas like Hydar Ally – is they’re very well-meaning but almost a century and a half after Darwin explained that even living organisms have to adapt to their ever-changing environment – or face extinction – he doesn’t appreciate the same is true of institutions. Including the PPP.

Irfaan Ali, one of the new generation, explained the situation rather pithily, your Eyewitness thought, by showing that even Hydar Ally’s exemplar of “Marxism Leninist” – Dr Cheddi Jagan – was constantly changing with the times.

But didn’t even Marx explain that “dialectics” itself imply change? Including that of the “old guard”?

…from evasive analyses

In the attempts to explain what went down at the AFC elections, there’s a studied refusal to face the facts. If the AFC vote was a search for new leaders, how can Trotman – who was AWOL since the elections – be explained?

How about the elephant named “race”?