Dear Editor,
Expounding on Mr Leslie Gonsalves’ letter, ‘The people of Region 10 will stand strong to improve the conditions of life,’ (SN, June 27), I wish to say that Lindeners are mostly a combination of those born in the community after Alcan (Canada) launched Demba in 1925, and those who left different parts of Guyana decades ago to seek work and take up residence in the community.
And contrary to those who attack this whole community as freeloaders and sponges for protesting the PPP regime’s insensitive and vindictive decision to increase electricity rates in Linden from July 1, it was because of the dedication and hard work by these Guyanese, mostly from all over the country, that McKenzie went from a mining enclave 65 miles up the Demerara River to township status in 1970.
I said insensitive and vindictive because Prime Minister Samuel Hinds campaigned in Linden for the PPP prior to the November 28 elections, and said absolutely nothing about pending electricity rate hikes or even about the 77 Lindeners who would be laid off from the government-run National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA). The announcement and firing happened only after elections were over and results showed Lindeners voted overwhelmingly for APNU.
Second, much has already been said of the origin of how Lindeners became the recipients of free – and then cheap – electricity and potable water from Demba, and much has also been said about the arrangement to continue the tradition inherited from Demba and then Guymine, of bauxite pensioners receiving a cheap electricity supply until Linden could evolve away from bauxite dependency. What exactly has replaced bauxite as an economic source in Linden in the last 20 years?
And while PM Hinds has been loud and proud in his observation that Linden today is in much better shape compared to pre-1992, he never once mentioned what the unemployment rate in Linden is. It was TUC General Secretary, Mr Lincoln Lewis, has claimed that the unemployment rate in Linden is 70%, which means, according to PM Hinds, 30% of Lindeners and the government are both responsible for the so-called turnaround of Linden in the last 20 years. Yeah, right!
If there is a 70% unemployment rate in Linden, is it possible that foreign remittances are key to the community’s survival? Has the government ever done a study to determine how much money each community in Guyana receives via official money transfer agencies, because I won’t be surprised if Linden is being heavily supported by remittances, hence the survival of the community. A study, anyone?
Editor, I whole-heartedly echo Mr Gonsalves’ sentiments about the resiliency of Lindeners, but I sure question the will of the government to play a genuine role in this regard. I recall – as the government got ready to dispose of the bauxite industry – writing a letter to Stabroek News urging the government to retain a share so that bauxite workers can tap into their pension fund, said to be worth billions at the time, and become shareholders. SN managed to solicit a response from Head of the Privatization Unit, Mr Winston Brassington, who shot down the suggestion and insisted government was getting rid of the company.
The PPP, which prided itself as a working class party, was not interested in helping bauxite workers become part owners of the bauxite industry that provided their daily bread, but sold the Linden operations to the Chinese, the same way it took its hugely rewarding shares in GT&T and sold them to the Chinese, when the shares could have been sold to GT&T workers or other Guyanese. When it comes to the Chinese, it seems Guyanese take second spot.
What is even more ironic is that the PPP knows GuySuCo is haemorrhaging badly, yet the government would never sell the taxpayer-subsidized GuySuCo to the Chinese, who were responsible for botching construction of the US$200M Skeldon modernization project. And the reason is simple: The Chinese would downsize the workforce, the sugar belt communities would end up like the bauxite communities, and that would be political suicide for the PPP. Yes, the PPP regime would rather be in control of GuySuCo’s finances to ensure it has sugar workers’ votes.
So, if the people of Linden protest the electricity hikes, they have every right to, because for the last 20 years they have been discriminated against. The same Prime Minister who once lived in Linden, promised to be a bridge to Africans and boasted of how Linden is better off today, did absolutely nothing to end 20 years of the PPP regime denying Lindeners an electronic source of information and entertainment other than NCN, even as sugar belt and other communities had multiple sources of electronic information and entertainment.
In closing, I ask: What if the Jagdeo regime had sold the Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation and Sanata Complex to bauxite workers, instead of a close friend of the ex-President, and then have the state turn around and do billions of dollars in business with the new owners? Think of how these same billions could have benefited the Linden community, instead of a friend of the ex-President.
Yet, some still don’t believe that Lindeners should ever be protesting electricity rate hikes!
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
