…on Budget
The PNC-led Government has gone into survival mode with the spectre of the PPP’s no-confidence vote hanging over its head like the sharpened cutlass of a cane cutter poised to lop off the “head” of a cane stalk!! As the week closed, Nagamootoo, the man who was supposed to be a bulked-up PM, boasted with false bravado: “We will have this motion discussed and defeated, because it is not viable.” But his saucer-sized widened eyes – like a deer’s caught in headlights – gave him away!!
If he’s so confident of leading the coalition MPs into victory, why wait till December, and not get it out of the way before the Budget Debate? Because he knows the no-confidence debate will be a Guyanese “Charge of the Light Brigade”, that’s why!! Defeat is certain!! Your Eyewitness is sorry, though, for the backbenchers on the coalition benches. To paraphrase Tennyson: “Not though these MP’s knew/ Someone had blundered./ Theirs not to make reply,/ Theirs not to reason why,/ Theirs but to do and die./ Into the valley of Death/ Rode the thirty-three.”
But, as your Eyewitness said yesterday, the Budget is just free publicity for the coalition Government to promise all sorts of meaningless giveaways for their constituency; knowing full well, come the new year after the inevitable new elections, there will be a new Budget by the victorious PPP!! Even on the cusp of Jordan reading out his Budget – which he’ll predictably label banally “Biggest ever!” — your Eyewitness will tell you why the PNC isn’t serious about Guyana or its people.
While a budget details a government’s spending for the coming year, if they mean business about development, that spending will be part of a broader strategic plan. But this Budget – your Eyewitness predicts once again – will be just “bread and circus” for the gullible, and will completely ignore the “Green Development Strategy” it ostentatiously announced two years ago.
In its own words, “The strategic approach which will be adopted to address the structural transformation of Guyana’s economy into a green and inclusive one will recognise the economic value of the extractive sectors, instituting measures to ensure their environmental sustainability while facilitating new economic growth from a more diverse set of inclusive, green and high value-adding sectors.
“Emphasis will be placed on a number of areas which will contribute to facilitating a shift from a heavy reliance on a commodities-dependent productive base to one that is more diversified, value-adding, inclusive, and green: Resource extraction for sustainable development/ Sustainable, productive, climate-resilient and diversified agriculture/ Green, inclusive, high value-adding industrial development/ Enabling business environment.”
Your Eyewitness challenges Nagamootoo to identify programmes in the coming Budget that advance even ONE of those objectives!!
Wanker!!
…with a 4% party
After the LGE humiliated him by revealing that even his AFC candidates in his home village, Whim (including his sister, his Dabit and Pupah!), couldn’t get their “backers” to vote for them, Nagamootoo tried to bluff his way out by claiming he’s still part of a 10 per cent party. He even disputed Jagdeo’s claim that in reality there was no way he could even get past 4 per cent! Well, now that GECOM’s announced the AFC barely got 4 per cent of the votes, what says he now? Is he going to fess up and eat humble pie? Is he going to apologise to Jagdeo?
Not Nagamootoo. The man has always been a bluffer, known for his tall tales. Remember him telling everyone Jagan PROMISED HIM THE PRESIDENCY in the Rupununi? Did he think all the Indigenous Peoples listening to the great man couldn’t understand English? How come none of them even confirmed Nagamootoo’s claim?
And failure begets failure. Bereft of votes, his goose is cooked come 2020!!
…on change
The PNC, like the leopard (and jaguar) of yore, can’t change its spots; it’s genetic!! They retained Chase-Green as a candidate in Georgetown, and just watch them return her as Mayor!!
You can’t just dump folks who know where the bodies are buried!!
