President needs to fire all those who need to be fired!

Dear Editor,
The United Republican Party (URP) notes with dismay that after one year in office, the Granger-led Administration has refused to implement a Code of Ethics for the coalition. All the while, several of its Ministers have been involved in questionable behaviour for which they should have been excommunicated from the Government. Had the coalition implemented a meaningful ethical code, there is no way the Ministers fingered for such rogue actions would have survived in the Government.
How is it that the new Government could have found the time to discuss several non-manifesto issues such as a raise of salary for themselves; the allocation of 0 million for the Jubilee and counting; the removal of the vendors from the streets of Georgetown; million for celebration in New York, millions more for celebrations in Canada, England and other parts of the Diaspora; the hundreds of millions of dollars in audits, etc? But they cannot find the time to discuss ways of fulfilling their campaign promises, like the raising of salaries for public servants and sugar workers, the reducing the Value Added Tax and the implementation of a Code of Conduct for the Administration? How is it that they could find Government jobs for their friends, families and election campaign staff but fired thousands of Amerindians and Indians?
The citizens of Guyana felt they could no longer be fooled by the People’s Progressive Party. So in May 2015, they woke up and joined forces to bring an end to the Jagdeo-Ramotar led Administration. After one year of the Granger-led coalition, this regime turns out to be more arrogant. But the people are as vigilant as they were just before the 2015 election. If this People’s National Congress-Alliance For Change Administration thinks that it will bamboozle the Guyanese people, they are very mistaken. The notion that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, is well known and appreciated by the local populace. The country is watching its leaders and will punish them electorally, when they deserve it.
The word on the street is that one year is far too long to come up with a code of conduct. Did the respective parties not have codes of conducts? What governed their internal operations? Is it that those who operated without guidelines in their own parties are now tossed onto the unsuspecting Guyanese? If all the collating parties had had guidelines and codes of conducts within their own purview, they could have lent those guidelines to the Government and thus come up with some acceptable, universal, ethical document, which could have been immediately implemented. This delay and pussyfooting on such major issues is not sitting well with the ever vigilant Guyanese.
Dela Britton, Darlene Christian, Simone Ramlall, Tamara Khan, Sasha Rajkumar and Carlyle Goring; those who worked on the coalition’s Code of Conduct, need to be reassigned to that “draft” code and they need to stay with it until it is transitioned from its draft stage into an acceptable and actionable document. If the Government can find monies to audit others, they sure could scrape a few more dollars to audit themselves. The URP believes that a well-constructed and formally implemented Code of Conduct will serve as a constant audit for the Government.
The URP is very wary that the Prime Minister and First Vice President Moses Nagamootoo publicly stated that there is no time-frame as to when the Code would be incorporated into the existing law. After all the accusations of corruption, nepotism and charges of unethical behaviour that has being levelled at his embryonic administration, why would he be so noncommittal and evasive concerning enactment of such a required and elementary document?
The Prime Minister went on to state that expediency in the adoption of the code of ethics is not his concern. Well, it might not be his concern but a populace burdened by constant corruption inflicted on them by the State, is very concerned. Additionally, this was one of his party’s 100-day promises; it is now almost 200 days past that deadline. So the Prime Minister should be thrice as concerned. The URP is calling for the immediate and irreversible implementation of the Code of Ethics, as reviewed by all the mentioned stakeholders. We are also asking for justifiable reasons to be shared with the public for any delay in its implementation.
Further, the United Republican Party is asking that behaviours of current members of the Government be retroactively scrutinised using the implemented Code of Conduct to determine if they stand in violation of any of the established codes. And if they are found in violation of any of the Codes of Conduct, the URP is asking President Granger to prove to the Guyanese electorate that he is really the ethical standard bearer he is perceived to be and fire all those who need to be fired.

Yours truly,
Dr Vishnu Bandhu
URP Political Leader