Dear Editor,
For the longest while I have argued that the PPP/C government feels justified in treating Guyanese they way they do because they view them in very limited terms. How else do you account for the government‘s blatant act of holding the people’s money in NICIL and not in the Consolidated Fund? How else do you explain President Ramotar’s dismissive pronouncement on this matter, claiming that the government is doing nothing wrong? Any government that respects the people would not only have concerns about the legal ramifications of its actions but would also have serious regard to its moral and ethical responsibility to the nation. So assuming, for one minute, that Mr Ramotar is right and there was no legal wrong committed by holding the people’s money in NICIL funds, where are the moral and ethical considerations to respond in a manner which takes care of the reasonable expectation of the people?
Clearly, these considerations continue to be absent from the words and actions of members of the government, and this can only be possible because the government has no regard for the people. I wish to give the reminder that it was Thomas Jefferson who posited, “When governments fear the people there is liberty. When people fear the government there is tyranny.”
I listened to a few of the presentations during the budget debates and was appalled to hear PPP/C MP Gail Teixeira, a woman whom I respect for her role in Guyanese politics, intimate that people are living in Guyana longer today because of the PPP/C. What was worse is that similar comments were made by successive government MPs. How can people feel confident about making these statements, when they ought to know better? It is no secret that countries the world over for the past two decades or so have been experiencing a rise in life expectancy, owing to a number of international and other efforts. Take for instance, Somalia, which is plagued by ongoing civil war, and which had a life expectancy of 56 years in 2011 as compared to 46 years in 1991. So the fact that Guyanese are living longer does not owe anything to the PPP/C ‘power’ to breath ‘long life’ into them for which we must be ever grateful, but reflects a wider global trend.
There are numerous examples of the PPP/C government talking down to the Guyanese people. Several Guyanese, both in the parliamentary opposition and members of civil society, have sounded their voices on the NICIL issue, and it baffles the mind as to why the government continues to refuse to turn the people’s money over to the Consolidated Fund, where it belongs. Why this intransigent posture on an issue which is as clear cut as can possibly be, except of course, there is something to hide. It is time for the government to fear the people.
Yours faithfully,
Lurlene Nestor
