…about the PNC changes?
The PNC are gearing up for 2020, and much of their changes in personnel is to facilitate them winning that game-breaking election. After 2020, with oil flowing and all these carpetbaggers running around, it will be most difficult to change the momentum gained. Take the retirement of Oscar Clarke as the General Secretary of the PNC.
All this is meant to do is to change the optics of what constitutes the PNC in the most crucial factor – ethnic composition. By substituting Amna Ally for Clarke, the PNC are hitting two demographics that they would like to splinter away from their arch foe, the PPP. Amna Ally is phenotypically “Indian”, and they will be hoping that with her as the General Secretary of the PNC, they can assert with a straight face that Indians are represented at the “very highest level” of that party! So what if there’s only one PS out of 17 that’s an Indian? One minister, Amna Ally, who was moved from the Ministry of Social Cohesion to the Ministry of Social Protection, is worth more than all of them!!
Amna Ally has been around the block and some with the PNC – starting with the youth arm back in the day. Did she ever raise a squeak when Indians were rabidly discriminated against then by the PNC? She was an MP from 2001, when all hell broke loose from Buxton and dozens of Indians were arbitrarily executed by African freedom fighters. Was there even a whimper? Naah…Amna Ally has proven her loyalty to the PNC’s cause. But she makes good optics, baby!!
Then Amna Ally also makes good optics for being a Muslim. In the grand strategy left by Burnham, and which the experienced Oscar Clarke has been freed up to fine tune, the Muslim segment of the Indian demographic is cleavage they can widen. Note the PNC’s wooing of the Muslim community, which has ranged from awards to zealotry in protestations of commonality.
But, very sadly, Amna Ally’s appointment as General Secretary is one more proof that, for the PNC, it’s gonna be more of the same ole, same ole. Didn’t Burnham make Jai Narine Singh his first general secretary of the PNC? Didn’t he soon quit in disgust and exit? Since then, the figurehead Indian was mostly the Chairman – witness Cammie Ramsaroop and Winston Murray. What power did they ever wield??
But Amna Ally is no Jai Narine Singh; she is more than happy to be a token. After all, doesn’t she get to retain her Ministry of Social Protection portfolio, with all the perks that earns her?
…with graft?
On the matter of the “Case of the Super-Inflated Rental” the PNC are busy playing that old tune by Shaggy, “Wasn’t me!!”
Enquiring minds wanted to know how come Parliament was paying her mammoth rental when the “housing allowance” is only $25,000. This is spending out of the Consolidated Fund, baby. Doesn’t there have to be some sort of approval? “NO!” says the Parliamentary Clerk (PC). A “housing allowance” is different from “housing rental”! And the latter is an “administrative” decision. But, hold it! Does this mean if perchance some out-of-towner decides to hold up at the Marriott at $1,000,000/monthly, the PC would cough up? Has he absolute discretion over spending from the Consolidated Fund?
The Finance Minister says the PC’s answer is adequate. No wonder our economy’s tanking!
…on NGSA?
So the trend continues: the private schools, sending up just 400 students, dominated the top 1% performers at the NGSA.
Imagine, 12,929 public schoolers couldn’t match them!
