…for GECOM’s code of conduct
Elections were precipitated over a year ago when the NCM was passed on Dec 21, 2018. GECOM immediately said they could be ready in three months to hold the elections. Now your Eyewitness doesn’t want to rehash the PNC’s desperate and cynical rear-guard action to delay their moment of doom – but didn’t everyone in GECOM at that point know they had to line all their ducks in a row since then??
And among those ducks is a “code of conduct” for the political parties in the fray. Cause ever since the first elections it has been a FRAY!! While in most jurisdictions it is usual for the politicians to go after each other – they tend to do so with wit and humour. And even when they don’t, they’re not operating in a society in which the genie of violence has already been let out of the bottle. So, as part of the package when we had the return of free and fair elections in 1992, GECOM was supposed to release its “code of conduct” – which at least should have given pause to more extreme, inflammatory and divisive rhetoric.
What happened this time?? OK…so there was that tussle over the Chairman after Granger’s unilateral appointment. But if the new Chair Claudette Singh could’ve found enough time to drag out the OLE and other housekeeping electoral details, wasn’t the code on her “to-do” list?? It really is a shame and disgrace that GECOM had the parties sign one just TWO DAYS before the elections. What were the parties going to do in those two days?
The “rain” of invectives and threats from the PNC coalition parties fighting for a return performance at their raping of the State had already filled the tanks of bitterness and hatred in the hearts of their supporters. Volda Lawrence’s declaration that all her friends are PNC people and she only has jobs for them, was just the tip of the iceberg. Annette’s Ferguson’s promise to the Disciplined Forces – after she told them to turn off their phones so she won’t be recorded – that she’ll give them “house and land” if they vote for the PNC was just the latest.
This signing was locking the stable door loooong after the wild political broncos had bolted!! What should’ve been done instead, is to have the CEO and the staff of the GECOM Secretariat sign a code of conduct, as to how they should conduct themselves until the results are announced!!
No shenanigans in the polling stations, and certainly no hanky panky in the IT room when those SOPs are coming in.
The guardians of the electoral process needed guarding!!
…in sugar
Even as most are all hyped up about the elections, the sugar workers struggle for a wage increase to at least make up for the reduction of their pay packet by inflation, should remind us that folks are still struggling to just exist!! The PNC has used AFC stooges Nagamootoo and Ramjattan to claim sugar “wasn’t closed”, but “right-sized” – even as these men closed their eyes to the humongous writing on the walls of the shuttered factories: ALL SUGAR WILL GO UNDER THE PNC!!
We see this playing out at Uitvlugt estate when over the last week, it was reported that 48 hours production were lost last week. But that’s not the real story. Those 48 hours were lost through 15 factory stoppages. Do you know what it cost to bring back a factory up after its shutdown? Do you the cost of unprocessed cane? Or spoilt boiling juice? Slavery and indentureship were introduced to prevent factory stoppages!!
The real tragedy is the Government borrowing $30B on sugar assets and paying $1.5B annually in interests – to fix the “grinding estates”.
But not spending a penny on them!!
…shall be the cry
The energy of Irfaan Ali on the campaign trail has highlighted the listlessness and lack of focus by David Granger.
But he’ll be resting soon!!
