…to PNC’s Constitutional Change?
One of the strident demands one hears during the PNC and their minions’ “protests” is for “constitutional change” to facilitate “shared governance”. The PNC types themselves are somewhat reticent on the subject, and with good reason!! After all, wasn’t this one of their major promises after they inveigled the AFC to join them at the hip to contest the 2015 elections? Said they wouldn’t just share power with the AFC, but bring some PPPites in!!
Their expansive posture was probably the clincher to get those disaffected Indian-Guyanese supporters – especially from Berbice – to move over from the PPP camp, even though they might’ve retained a soft spot for the PPP. It saved Ramjattan’s early prediction of the AFC becoming “Dead Meat” if they were to “tie bundle” with the PNC. But we know, to our chagrin, that the PNC was just full of you-know-what about both constitutional change and power-sharing!
The AFC, in fact, DID become Dead Meat after Granger and his PNC stalwarts broke every promise to them – even the ones they extracted in writing in the Valentine’s Day “Cummingsburg Accord”. It was like Chamberlain’s Munich Agreement with Hitler, who had nothing but contempt for the former’s naïveté!! And boy, were Ramjattan and Nagamootoo naive – or was it their hunger for power that dulled their judgement?!! As the PPP presidential candidate, President Ramotar predicted at the time that all Nagamootoo was going to get – and DID eventually get – was Larwah!! After promising him a Prime Ministership on steroids – starting with Chairing Cabinet meetings – Nagamootoo was told after the elections – sorry, old chap…the Constitution didn’t cater for that!!
And what about the constitutional changes which also would’ve altered the governance structure; including separate elections to elect a President and National Assembly members, the capping of presidential powers, and changes to the composition of service commissions? All went for channa! After the Steering Committee to recommend the changes held a series of meetings with all sorts of experts and civil society groups, their Report was deep-sixed after being handed over to no one else but the same larwahed Nagamootoo!! Probably figured that the shafting needed company!!
And so it came to pass that, rather than sharing power, Granger instead CONCENTRATED power unto himself; and rather than calling him out, none of the so-called members of the coalition had the cojones to even whine about it!! They instead supported him – like with Ramjattan and the unilateral selection of James Patterson as GECOM Chair!
Now that they lost power – when their blatant rigging attempt failed – the Guyanese people are being regaled by PNC insiders about Granger’s authoritarian leadership style!! And they want him out!!
Too late shall be the cry!!
…Raphael Trotman?
One of the mysteries that confront your Eyewitness is that, while a slew of Guyanese have commendably become experts on the Exxon contract – actually Exxon-Hess-CNOOC – and demand that the PPP renegotiate the same, for some reason, they’ve allowed the man who gave away the store to sidle out of sight unscathed!! Doesn’t it strike them as more than passing strange that, with all the shenanigans that go on in the oil business, Trotman might’ve been involved with playing footsies with our oil companies? Remember those hundreds of millions of US dollars deposited into a Washington Bank account of the ruler of Equatorial Guinea??
Well, the NGO “Global Witness” – which made most of the revelations on the contract that the Guyanese knights in shining armour are tilting at – certainly remembered. And they recommended that an inquiry be conducted to follow the crumbs from Guyana to Texas!!
Now, if even the slightest whiff of hanky-panky is picked up, the contract can be questioned!!
Worth a try, no?
…to that WCB CoI??
Now that we’re reviewing the PPP’s first year in office, we have to remind them that a CoI was promised into the riotous goings-on in WCB following Granger and Harmon’s visit to the bereaved Henrys’ home.
