…in sugar industry
The “snake oil salesman” is an American trope describing those conmen who prey on the afflicted gullible by insisting their snake oil will cure everything. President Granger typifies the species in the political realm with his unctuous and ingratiating style, in which he never fails to have a plaster for every sore. Problem is, some desperate citizens, faced with the mountain of problems they face daily, listen to him and sometimes forget it was he who created the problems in the first place.
Remember that promise to fix blackouts, which had been reduced to just an irritant by the PPP? That’s snake oil; since he created the Stygian darkness we’re in when he absolutely refused to have his PNC sign off on the 165MW Amaila Hydro — which would have had enough power to satisfy our TOTAL electricity needs — causing the developer, Sithe, to walk away.
Remember his promise to reduce Presidential power and transfer some to his PM, Nagamootoo?? That’s snake oil WITH Larwah!! Stop corruption? Constitutional change? There’s been so much snake oil flowing from Granger’s mouth that Guyana is probably bereft of labarias by now!!
Anyhow, let’s take his foray into Berbice – Albion Sugar Factory, to be precise – to sell his snake oil on the sugar industry. He chose his audience well, the management of the estate and factory, who’re ultimately employed by him!! Were they going to point out he was emanating more hot air than the nearby chimney – and even more polluted?!
Donning a hard hat as his prop, he promised his captive audience, “I have come to fix things”!! Yes, he, David Granger, whose only experience with the sugar industry was when he provided scab labour to break GAWU’s strike for recognition in 1976, had come to “fix” sugar! Well, he’d already “fixed” it, hadn’t he?? Put it in a fix, that is!! He then went on to declare: “GuySuCo will not merely survive, it will thrive”!! Rivers of snake oil. It’s a good thing his audience had on “long boots”!!
How exactly is he going to save sugar?? He’d rejected his expert CoI’s recommendation to stabilise all seven estates and bring them to a point of sale. But he now says that, after the $30 billion bond funds are invested, sugar production costs will be reduced to US.30 cents/kg! How is that a “fix” when the present world price for sugar is US .26 cents/kg and falling?!? But then, he’s never worked to produce anything to sell, and had his salary paid for by the state, plus his education at UG!!
But even snake oil salesmen can’t fool all the people all the time, can they? Hence Granger’s desperate efforts to delay elections!
…calling it quits
Well, Granger may just be looking at his future when he read that his old YSM pal Ivelaw Griffith has decided to withdraw his application to be re-appointed VC at UG!!
Good riddance to a bad administrator!! Folks across the world were amazed when Papa Doc, and later his son Baby Doc, lived in a style that Marie Antoinette would’ve envied while millions of their citizens were forced to live like beasts in the forest.
Well, in a nutshell, that’s what Griffith tried to emulate at UG. Imagine, our only tertiary institution – with the lowest paid academic staff in the region – couldn’t even provide toilet paper for students!! But yet he had a salary with benefits that rivalled the President of the country, and created his own “Cabinet” to bring home the point!! He and his Cabinet’s salaries, on a per capita basis, were DOUBLE those of the academic staff.
But your Eyewitness is surprised the VC was reported as having “walked away”.
Wasn’t that “flew away” – first class??
…on Linden-Lethem Highway
Raphael Trotman is Minister of Natural Resources. So how come he’s announcing, “International firms express interest to build Linden-Lethem road”?? Where’s MPI Patterson? Adding up foreign deposits into his account?
And what happened to the China BRI?? Snake oil!!
