President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday said that he was very concerned about a recent revelation that a foreign country has a “vested interest” in the upcoming general and regional elections. He did not name the country.
Addressing the annual officers’ conference of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Jagdeo said he heard “word coming of a mission here that they have vested interest in our elections.” He added, “Now you can have interest, we welcome assistance. But I am afraid of what vested interest has done to our people historically.”
He said no “foreigner” should have vested interest in Guyana’s internal affairs. “…They can have an interest, they can be helpful but this vested interest concerns me a lot,” he noted.
Jagdeo also sounded a warning to anyone who might want to commit violence during this year’s elections. He said he has already indicated to the heads of the army and the police force that strong measures will be taken against those who violate the country’s constitution. He said they would “come down hard” on those who orchestrate violence as the children of the country deserve better.
According to Jagdeo, the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) has the powers to bar political parties that use people’s gender, their religion and race as campaigning tools. “We must never allow that to happen in this country; that people should feel dehumanised, demeaned because at elections they are being characterised in camps because of their political beliefs. We must become totally intolerant to this,” he said.
He told the officers that their job is not only to lead the army and the men under them but “also to understand this context because you are going to be influencing them, going to be talking to them, leading them.” He added that their juniors would look up to them for inspiration and knowledge and in this context he emphasised the need for them being more familiar with issues and having a broader perspective on them.
The president delivered a marathon address at yesterday’s opening, dealing with global financial issues, global trade negotiations and China overtaking the US as the economic powerhouse in another 30 years, among other issues.
He defended the 2011 budget and scoffed at the opposition labeling it an “elections budget.” And while he said he would not get into the “usual stuff” that happens in parliament, Jagdeo said he hopes that people would be “captured by the bigger vision.” He added, “The problem is that too often we become so petty in these debates that we lose sight of the vision, where we want to take our country and how progressively we are taking it there because the budget every year takes us closer to that vision.”
He said the vision includes all of the country’s children receiving “world class” education and where every Guyanese is computer literate. The president also took issue with PNCR-1G MP Volda Lawrence’s questioning of the One Laptop Per Family initiative. “To even question something like that, where of the 180,000 households we have in Guyana, 90,000 of them would get a computer from the government and a chance to improve their lives and be connected to the internet, means you are seriously out-of-touch with what it takes to build a modern country,” Jagdeo stated.
He said that the three most important areas to build a modern country are education; connectivity and computer literacy; and renewable hydropower. According to Jagdeo, it will be a lack of vision “that will cause us to lose our way and perish, if our parliamentarians can’t focus on the right issues, if they can’t see the bigger picture….”
He called on the officers to set their sights on the bigger picture because “you would have to implement it,” while adding that some of the brightest people and leaders are among them.
Jagdeo told the officers that there is need for some of them in the state agencies and he singled out the Guyana Geology & Mines Commission. “I need some soldiers in there. The corruption in the field is unbelievable, particularly with the price of gold where it is and I need to clean up some of this situation there too,” Jagdeo said. He added that there are some other areas that need strengthening and discipline.
According to Jagdeo, Guyana ended last year with over US$700M in reserves in the banking system and he added that the “Petro-Caribe money it is over eight hundred million in US dollars, the highest ever.” “Someone said why don’t we spend up all of this money and if we spend it up then we get into more trouble. So, this is why we didn’t spend it, you have a lower budget deficit this year than last year although it is a elections year because in the long run that is the only way you can do it.”
