It is now just over two months since President Irfaan Ali took office; it is just over two months since the PPP Government took the reins of Government, and both President Ali and his PPP Government have changed the governance model Guyana unfortunately experienced between May 2015 and August 2020.
In just over two months, President Ali has visited more communities than President David Granger did in five years. President Ali has not been out commissioning anything yet, he has not been visiting for party events; he has been out visiting people in their communities, addressing important daily challenges people face. He has not been visiting only communities that overwhelmingly voted for him, but has visited and engaged citizens in communities that voted overwhelmingly against him.
Simultaneously, his ministers are in outreaches across Guyana. Leaving out the hinterland visits during the 2020 election campaign, the PPP Ministers have already made more visits to the hinterland in the last two months than the APNU+AFC Government did in five years.
President Irfaan Ali is leading from the front, as the PPP Government returned to the outreach governance that it practised under Bharrat Jagdeo’s presidency.
During Bharrat Jagdeo’s presidency, he took the cabinet to every region many times. Cabinet meetings were often taken to the ten regions of Guyana. Those cabinet meetings were accompanied by two-day-long outreaches, with ministers and technical officers in attendance. President Donald Ramotar continued that initiative.
President David Granger never led a single such Cabinet outreach. The first outreach under the APNU+AFC Government with multiple ministers was after the No-Confidence Motion in December 2018, and that outreach was not until 2019, four years into the APNU+AFC Government. President Granger made more international visits than he did in communities across Guyana. In fact, the collective international visits of APNU+AFC Ministers outnumbered their total collective visits to communities during their term in office. I am leaving out such visits like the then Prime Minister made to his family’s home in Whim and Harmon and his friends made to BK’s quarry. Those large convoyed visits were social in nature, and none was ever a visit to a community to address their problems.
There were many times when the APNU+AFC Ministers were shamed into visiting communities experiencing serious floods and other problems. In fact, it was almost impossible for people to see the Ministers at their offices. They were always too busy, always in meetings, and too often out of the country.
The David Granger-led APNU+AFC Government was the most aloof Government in the history of post- Independence Guyana. Their ministers paid the price, as the people lost confidence in them.
Thus far, President Ali has shown a willingness and an enthusiasm for being among the people. He is showing he is a President of the people: not just showing up, but addressing problems and bringing solutions. He and his PPP Government have kept many of the promises they made during the 2020 campaign. Presently, concrete plans are in place for reopening the closed sugar estates. APNU+AFC had warned that the promise of reopening the sugar estates was an election gimmick, not realistic. It is just over two months since they attained office, but President Ali and his Government have already made serious steps in the direction of reopening those estates. Already, persons have been hired at Rose Hall and Skeldon sugar estates, and the Enmore Packaging Plant has begun to produce packaged sugar.
The PPP Government has begun the distribution of $25,000 per household for COVID-19 relief. It has increased old-age pension, restored the water and electricity subsidies for pensioners, and the cash grants for school children, increasing it to $15,000 per child. The Government has reversed the tax burden that the last Government mercilessly placed on the citizens of the country. Already, it is preparing to issue more than 2,500 house lots for this year alone.
It has started major projects around the country. The Minister of Infrastructure was with his Surinamese colleague this week, initiating the plans for the bridge across the Corentyne River. The President and the Minister of Infrastructure visited the new site for the Demerara River Bridge. The Ogle bypass road to Eccles has started. Work is starting on the Linden-to- Lethem Road. The plans to start construction of new hospitals at Suddie, West Demerara and Bartica have been accelerated. The Mahaicony Sea Defence is finally being undertaken. Remedial work at the CJIA has started. Guyana has obtained a better deal from EXXON.
Given the uphill task that President Irfaan Ali and the PPP Government inherited, the Irfaan Ali-led PPP Government has hit the road running. It has rekindled hope that OIL will add to a diversified economy, and unlike the lifelong disappointment of the past: that Guyana is CARCOM’s bread basket, this time around, Guyana is poised to transform our economy, our infrastructure, and the social welfare needs of the citizens.
Finally, we can believe that Guyana will take its place as the leading economy in CARICOM, with a living standard that matches a high middle-income country. It is the destiny of President Irfaan Ali. It is Guyana’s destiny.
