War… against poverty? 

One of the Opposition papers – which was funded by the US-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – bigged up a section of Pressie’s post-inauguration speech to announce a “national crusade against poverty”!! Explained the president: “We will also confront the cost of living head-on. Electricity costs will be cut by half. Water tariffs will not increase. No new taxes will be imposed. We will intervene wherever necessary to shield our people from unfair or predatory pricing. We will boost local food production – including poultry, fish, and vegetables – so that our markets are filled with affordable, fresh, locally produced food.” He went on to talk about helping the pensioners with increased emoluments, etc.
Now when the Opposition starts quoting Pressie, you know that there’s more in the mortar than the pestle!! So, what’s going on? Well, first of all, it gave them an opportunity to snicker that Pressie was forced into taking notice by the series they ran on “how folks dealt with the rising cost of living”!! But secondly, from where your Eyewitness sits, it seems that Pressie gonna be doing exactly what his Government’s been doing for the past five years.
But since that Government is committed to a free-enterprise economy, ultimately, it’s people earning more money from better-paying jobs that’s gonna take care of the “increased cost of living”!! And this takes time!! When you have money coming out of your kazoos, you don’t gripe about “cost of living”!! VP Jagdeo had dismissed these sorta claims for what they were – merely stoking the fires of resentment in the minds of some in the populace by eliding the bigger picture showing the path out.
Fact of the matter, there ain’t an economy in history – or right now in the world – where growth in income is uniform – much less instantaneous – for all strata, groups, regions, genders, etc. And with us, starting from such a depressed level of 48 per cent unemployment when the APNU/AFC coalition was booted out, it’s to the credit of the Government that it not only facilitated the creation of more jobs but also launched so many projects to cushion the lag.
The danger in pandering to the Opposition on this issue is that their idea of “reducing poverty” ain’t through job creation – leading to sustainable development – but through incentive-sapping initiatives of simply doling out money!! Such as with their $1M annual handout to every adult in Guyana!! Can you see any of the 100,000 Scrapes engaging in gainful employment after receiving such a handout??
That’s the danger of the Opposition bleating about the “poor”. They see the latter as cannon fodder to rile up against the Government – and not as human beings to be weaned away from handouts to live in dignity!!!

…in WIN Camp
It’s really pathetic when you think about how populist leaders can destroy the mental equilibrium of their simple-minded followers who believe their outlandish promises, which are invariably NOT of their circumstances. In the case of WIN, there’s the billionaire leader, Sanction Man – into whose grubby paws $11 billion in ill-gotten illegal gains were dropped by Daddy to play with – and the promises he made to them are now shown to have been a cruel joke – at best.
He’s not even thinking of Doggie, who boasted he’ll be taking on Anil in Parliament!! There’s one pathetic Reel that crossed your Eyewitness’ feed of a young Amerindian female who blurted out in stilted English that she doesn’t know what she’ll do with her life now that she’s not gonna be the VP of Guyana!! Yes!!! You heard that right!! Seems she was “trained” for the position – in the three months since the party was formed?
She implied ruefully that she might have to make do!!

…against Drugs
Looks like blood is thicker than water. Iberian-descended Columbia and Brazil are opposing the US upping the ante in their war against drugs that’s been waged against them by Mad Maduro.
While Guyana and T&T are enthusiastically supporting the Yanks. Quo Vadis??