When our Eyewitness was a callow, knobby-kneed kid in short pants, one of his worries was whether he’d remember to write the new year in the practised letters Mr Waddell had forced him and his cohorts to compose in Standard 1. Mr Waddell was a fast bowler on the teachers’ team, and it was clear to your youthful Eyewitness that the chucking action he was accused of came out of his enthusiastic wielding of the cane for even the slightest infraction committed by his charges!! Even though auto check now watches over your eyewitness’s shoulder, the frisson of fear is still palpable!!
So, what about 2025?? Your Eyewitness has already written (too) copiously about the upcoming general elections. The inevitable commentaries from all quarters about President Jimmy Carter’s passing, and his efforts to institutionalise democracy here, would also reinforce long-instituted fears about the elections. The Carter-inspired structure of GECOM as a political institution, with the Opposition and Government being balanced by a putative “neutral” professional Chairman, is now under attack by Opposition. Their complaint: that the incumbent Chairman ain’t neutral, would only have been multiplied sixfold if the entire Commission were “professionals”!! Your Eyewitness notes that even the Supreme Court in Jimmy’s USA can be “packed”!!
But he thinks that, in three weeks’ time, when Trump’s sworn-in to office, a lot of wheels are gonna be set into motion, impacting directly on us. Hopefully, with the US$526M GtE loan coming out of the EXIM Bank via its “China and Transformational Exports Program” mandate, if the lame-duck Biden Administration was willing to go this route to take on China’s creeping economic annexation, imagine what Trump’s gonna do!! American companies – especially expat-Guyanese ones – should seize the opportunity!! Don’t send no mo’ barrels; open up factories to benefit both them and us, without them reminding us we’re collecting handouts.
The other effect your Eyewitness expects would be over in Venezuela. Mad Maduro – as expected – would swear himself in on Jan 10th. With anti-Maduro hardliners in State, Defense, SouthCom, Security Adviser etc – and in the White House – the US gonna be hard pressed to justify another four years of the madman. Chevron’s licence would be up for renewal, and this could be the stick to beat Mad Maduro over the head!!
And that brings us to Caricom – where Ralphie Boy is encouraging others, like Mia Mottley, to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. We gotta draw a line about what it really means to support us on Mad Maduro’s border controversy. They can’t be allowed to cherry-pick anti-democratic declarations of Venezuelan elections without any proof of the basis – such as voting machine tabs.
Next, we know they’ll recant their positions on the March 2020 elections!!
…medical intervention
The Government’s doing a wonderful job of dealing with our medical care by opening hospitals all over the place. And not just any old “cottage hospital”, as of yore. Today we hear of specialised one to take care of maternal and paediatric – like the one in Enmore – and tertiary ones in practically all the regions. They’re fully equipped with the latest specialised diagnostic equipment and such like. But what’s worrying your Eyewitness is something he’s written about several times – and was prompted again by the news that GPHC’s still short of 700 nurses!! Your Eyewitness is reminded of the old poem he learnt in primary school as the afore-mentioned youth: “For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,/ For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,/ For the want of a horse the rider was lost,/ For the want of a rider the battle was lost,/ For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,/ And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”
Nurses, anyone??
