Dear Editor,
First, I think Mr Michael Tannassee meant criticism and not condemnation (‘Condemn-ations should be accompanied by solutions,’ SN, December 29) when he referenced letter writer, Mr GHK Lall’s often erudite analyses of the issues confronting Guyanese at home. I have read most, if not all, of Mr Lall’s educated letters, plus the satirical one, and his letters simply analyze and crystallize issues affecting Guyanese. Where necessary, he offered objective criticisms, inherent in which were the obvious antidotes for what he cited as the mistakes and violations by those in authority. Second, Mr Tannassee’s suggestion that Guyanese letter writers should provide ideas for solving the problems we expound on would be welcome if most of us felt they would be utilized by the government. Unfortunately, a cursory study of many of the problems being discussed publicly would show that they either could have been avoided or have been easily resolved via the commonsense route, without us even having to come up with ideas. Besides, the PPP and its government have convinced most of us that they don’t need the public’s opinion on the issues affecting Guyanese, so whatever ideas are tossed around in the letter columns or on SN’s readers’ blog are meant largely to educate or inform Guyanese, or simply engage in a conversation.
I remember during the PPP’s last congress, members of the public were asking who might be the PPP’s presidential candidate for 2011, and the party’s General Secretary put out a statement saying that the public had no business trying to find out because the selection of such a person was a matter internal to the PPP. He was telling the public it had no right to know beforehand who might be leading the nation if the PPP wins the next elections, but he didn’t recognize the public was dismayed at the growing chasm between Freedom House and Office of the President, as the creator had been abandoned by the creature. Can Guyanese afford to have their next leader chosen in a highly secretive manner reminiscent of how the former USSR picked its presidents, and live with the results we are seeing? Still, I wholly support the emergence of a plethora of viable ideas to make Guyana better and thus improve the livelihood of Guyanese, and if the letter forums of the private dailies are the most effective channels available right now, then let us make maximum use of them. We are yet to benefit from any study that says Guyanese voted for the AFC because voters gained from the robust exchange of political views in the free media, but I won’t be surprised if the role of the free media was a major factor. Who would have foreseen seventeen or even 10 years ago that a political party named the Alliance For Change would be born and win six seats in Parliament in the 2006 elections? And who knows what role the private media played with the public’s ideas and opinions to this end?
Meanwhile, I have duly noted Mr Tannassee’s 10 points he considered “immediate issues that should have been addressed since January 1993,” and those were very salient issues. I am sure most of us could provide a mixture of analyses of the PPP’s performance for the past seventeen years, including and especially the President’s own performance in the last 10 years. But after 28 years of the PNC in power and 17 years of the PPP in power, we’d be simply engaging in a painful review of their abject failure to deliver despite the nation’s potential to do exceedingly better. So I’d go one step farther and look at some areas the next government might want to consider, among other things:
1. National economy – a) Establish a long-term National Economic Advisory Council, made up of at least six Guyanese from at home and the diaspora to serve three-year terms, with a view to having them draft a national economic recovery and development strategy. The strategy could incorporate past recommendations, but it must be based on realistic projections; and after review by the executive branch, must be debated and discussed by a parliamentary committee on the economy before being presented to the full Parliament for consideration. All debates and discussions must be publicly aired. b) Great emphasis should be placed on foreign direct investments, targeting foreigners and Guyanese in the diaspora. Special consideration should be given to encouraging publicly traded companies under a Guyana commodities exchange commission. A feasibility study should be done in a short time-frame to determine how to expedite the process to turn Guyana, in the long term, into an agriculture-based economy.
2. National security – a) Establish a long-term national security advisory council, made up of at least six Guyanese from at home and the diaspora to serve three-year terms, with a view to having them draft a national security strategy to deal with defending our sovereignty, plugging our porous borders, dangerous crimes and criminals, and working with a thoroughly reformed judiciary, police and prison system, to ensure that persons convicted of crimes that threaten our national security interests (including racial crimes) be condignly dealt with. Recommendations from this council must be subjected to debate and discussion by a parliamentary committee on national security before being presented to the full Parliament for consideration. For security reasons, not all discussions and debates should be publicly aired, and this would be determined by the House Speaker. b) To help establish a sense of patriotism and national involvement, all Guyanese, but particularly youths, should be encouraged to serve either full or part-time in the GDF, which should be revamped to cater to both national security as well as national service needs. Rejuvenate the engineering corps to play critical roles in helping develop social infrastructure. Persons who serve in the army should be given preferential treatment in the areas of exams for the civil/public service, for public/civil service employment (including the police force), educational development and government assistance with housing. There is scope for expanding points here, but I will rest.
3. National constitution – Establish a short-term national constitution amendment committee, made up of at least six Guyanese from at home and the diaspora, with a view to having them do a complete review of the current constitution, making amendments and repeals in keeping with the current social, economic and political circumstances. Specific attention should be paid to greatly reducing the powers and privileges of the president and to making the national election process more amenable to the needs of the people and not the needs of political parties.
4. National assembly – Members of the National Assembly should be elected directly by the people from the voting regions/districts and be subjected to recall by a certain number of signatures from those in the region/district the MP represents. No more party list system or empowering parties to recall members, and MPs shouldn’t have to always vote strictly along party lines. The National Assembly should also establish various committees to address activities of each government ministry or agency. These committees must also be constitutionally empowered to call any employee of the government or even the public, under penalty of perjury, to answer questions related to matters of public interest and concern.
5. Local government – Abolish the direct line between the Ministry of Local Government and local governments or authorities so that local governments are autonomous and not answerable to the Minister or to stop the Minister from running political interference or intervention in local government activities, yet allow local governments to be eligible for financial assistance from central government, based on the budgetary needs, and provided their financial records are available to the central government or the parliamentary committee for local government. It should be a prosecutable violation (with hefty fines and imprisonment for GECOM officials) if constitutional local government elections are not held on schedule without prior permission for postponement from the parliamentary committee for local government.
These five areas do not exhaust the full spectrum deserving urgent attention, but I limit myself to these five, and close by making one economic-related suggestion: that a long-term feasibility study be undertaken to look at setting up a rail link from the Rupununi to Georgetown via Linden. Once a rail link is built, people are likely to consider residing in areas along the route so that, over time, development of our hinterland will take shape. But to achieve these and more, we need a change of government; we need a true visionary with big and bold ideas and the backbone to stand up and fight for a better Guyana. It’s past time to stop wasting resources trying to get different results by doing pretty much the same thing every time.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin