…from a friend
We’ve all heard about “tough love”. In case you haven’t, David Hinds recently said that’s what he showed the APNU/AFC coalition when he rapped them on the knuckles on the Rodney CoI’s report. It was “tough love” because his WPA’s a partner in the said coalition – like one of those Russian Babushka dolls that fit into each other in an infinite regression. This love is “tough” – unlike the “soft” version shown by another WPA member Rupert Roopnaraine, who pretty much said, “do wha’ yuh want wid me”!!
Anyhow, we just saw another type of love being exhibited last week when the USAID released a specially commissioned report on the Government’s first year in office. This is “ROUGH LOVE” and in normally shown by intimates who can tell you like it is in a brutal fashion! No holds barred. They can do this for the simple reason your behaviour’s threatening their interests – and you can’t do them squat when they sock it to you.
For example, in an overall assessment of what it calls the her men’s/rather worthwhile verbally expressed aspiration towards things like “good governance” and “inclusion”, it concluded it “lacks the political acumen needed to address the above-listed struggles”!! Whew!! “Lacks political acumen”!!! In other words the Government’s been quite dumb in going about its business. In fact the report even used language seldom seen in these “official reports” – it repeated the above assessment when it said the APNU/AFC Government just “talks the talk, but can’t walk the walk”!! When was the last time you heard that kind of language excepting from the Opposition benches?!
But the USAID Report didn’t confine itself to broad condemnations – it went for the jugular. For instance “the abuse of state resources for partisan ends”! Now isn’t this what the Opposition’s been screaming about for the last year? The report didn’t have to mention the billion dollar settlements that are awarded without the “partisans” even taking the govt to court! Or the doubling of Ministerial salaries – even as the Government workers got zilch, did they!
We heard the Government couldn’t “constrain the habit of inserting party loyalists within made-up positions”!! “Made up positions!!” Think about the dozens of “Presidential Advisors”. Think about the four “Prime Ministerial representatives”. Think about Ministries that no one can still figure out what the heck they’re doing! Social Cohesion, anyone?
But the most pertinent was that the Government wasn’t following “due process”. Coming from an American, this is just about the last rites on democratic governance being read in Guyana!
But they gave the Government 18 months to change matters. This is the “love” part.
…but not on integrity!!
Your Eyewitness has been carrying on like a voice in the wilderness on this long promised “Code of Conduct” by this government. Promised to be launched in “three months”, it’s looking more and more like one of those old “Cecil D DeMills” production like the Ten Commandments that were always “years in the making”. But hey!! THAT was trying to convey the teachings of the Divine via celluloid. All we’re talking about here is for some simple rules to keep members on the straight and narrow. Not a new Ten Commandments!!
And it’s not like they don’t know where to draw some lines – they’ve been criticising the PPP’s “lapses” forever. And if they “forgot” they can now refer to the USAID Report. But after crafting a “draft code” that took months, then taking “comments” (more months) , the PM decided to fuse it with the Integrity Commission (more months) he now wants to give the latter “investigative and prosecutorial powers”.
You think they’re stalling?
…on vigilante justice
Prezzie recently announced, “We can’t tolerate vigilantism, especially when it results in the injury or death of anybody; it can get out of hand”.
Was he perchance talking about SOCU and its rogue Wild West fatal chase?
