…in the Regions?
For those in the Opposition still clamouring for a piece of the (political) action, well, they did get what they asked for on Monday, didn’t they? Four of the ten Regions are under their control – 4, 7, 8, and 10. So shouldn’t they be now buckling down to show Guyana how better they are at running things than the PPP? When the PNC introduced the “Regional System” back in the 1980s with their new constitution, they boasted about how they were passing on “power to the people” in the truest sense of the term. “Forget Rodney’s slogan,” they said, “that was just demagoguery”!!
So, here it is, they have power in the largest Region of them all, Region 4; the strategically-positioned Region 10, and 7, all with their large urban centres that are critical for mobilisation. Each of those towns – Georgetown, Bartica and Linden – also have Town Councils that run them, and also with devolved powers of taxation. The Regions also get huge subventions from the central Government, and a huge bureaucracy to run all the day-to-day services that affect ordinary folks.
Take education, which they are responsible for. There are all these complaints about the performance of the schools at the CSEC exams run by CXC, and the Ministry of Education at the centre has come out swinging on their behalf. But what about the Regional Education Officer (REO) and his staff who’re supposed to supervise the schools in the Regions? Have they taken stock of the exam results from the private schools – especially the religiously run ones like that one in Reg 3 – that actually IMPROVED their performance?? Aren’t they in the best position to check out what’s the cause of this discrepancy? Could it be that the Government schools just didn’t put systems in place to get the material to the students via the new necessary internet portals??
Anyway, dear reader…you get the idea? The PNC’s in as good a position as any to show up the PPP. But don’t expect them to go down this (higher) road – this will be “the path not taken”! Just as they will not utilise the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee – half of which they control through rotating chairmanships. They’ll just do what they’ve been doing ever since Forbes Burnham hived off the PNC from the United Independence PPP Movement for his own selfish aims – obstruction, diversion and destruction.
They just don’t want to do the sometimes-tedious job of actually managing and administering. They demonstrated this during their recent five years at the helm. All their attention was directed at filling their pockets in the most avaricious manner.
And it’ll be the same ole, same ole.
…but not with AFC
One of the reasons why “power sharing” is just a catch phrase with the PNC is that it’s antithetical to a value that’s hard wired into its institutional DNA – paramountcy! This “paramountcy of the party” – enunciated in Burnham’s “Declaration of Sophia” – remains a guiding compulsion of the PNC. If the PNC announced it was PARAMOUNT over the state, why do minnows like the AFC or WPA think they’ll ever share REAL power with them??
The vestige of the WPA that survives – more as a parody than anything else – at least had the good sense to take a hike when Granger arbitrarily picked their “representative”. Did the AFC – and especially Patterson – REALLY think Granger was going to keep his 70:30 Cummingsburg II split when he threw Cummingsburg I into the garbage?
Cummings’s explanation that the 1 vice-Chair given to the AFC represents their 30% (why not 1 of the 3 Chairs?) is just a variant of Granger’s mamaguy to Nagamootoo.
You gotta be a “born PNC”!!
