Sharma Solomon says he is on a mission to improve the lives of the people of Region 10 and reverse the economic downturn of Linden. One of the youngest Regional Chairmen – he is in his early thirties – Solomon stands by his mantra ‘service to the people’ which came out of his 18 years as a practising Muslim, and he believes that leading Region Ten is his way of serving the residents.
“I would classify myself as a servant to humanity; it matters not which position I find myself in, I am always in service. As a Muslim it is the way I see life; you are in service…” he told the Sunday Stabroek in an interview.
His entry into politics was preceded by his work as a social activist trying to create social change in the community, and for the past four years he has written many letters detailing the social ills affecting the residents of Region Ten and Guyanese in general. As a social advocate he has moved to have youths change their direction through sports and has also spoken out against domestic violence and fought against gender-based violence.
In the many letters he has written he has maintained that the country needed to change direction, and since he was always one to be a part of change it was a natural move to enter politics. While he had been a PNCR member for a number of years, it was the party’s decision to form the APNU partnership that saw him actively campaigning for it. The PNC’s decision to elect its presidential candidate was another reason, because for Solomon this spelt change.
As campaign manager of Region 10 during the elections for APNU, Solomon said he managed to include all stakeholders and representatives and allow a “younger approach to politics in Region 10 to emerge… It was a lot of young people who carried the campaign…” The party’s overwhelming victory in the region saw him being named as the new Regional Chairman.
“Because of my experience in advocating for so many of the things affecting the region, it was a quite comfortable role to come into, and outside of being comfortable in the role the first challenge that I took on as Chairman was to see how I could bring together all the people of the region, despite their differences of race, religion and political orientation.”
Since becoming Chairman, he has made over fifty visits to different parts of the region, and his first major advocacy in his new post was a one-man picket in front of Parliament Building to condemn the fact there is only a single television station in Linden. He said this action allowed people to understand that the chairman can do more than just sit behind a desk and give instructions.
‘Drastic way’
And up came the 2012 budget presentation and Solomon said he realized that its content was going to set Linden back in the most “drastic way in terms of its economy, and after being such a strong advocate it would not have been the right thing to sit quietly and not say or do any anything about it.”
So he is seen as one of the leaders in the recent protest action in Linden, which began with the government decision to reduce the electricity subsidy, and which came to encompass the fact that according to Solomon some 70% of the residents do not have jobs, among other things.
The protest started on April 5, but a planned five day shutdown of the town commencing on July 18 went seriously wrong when three young men were killed after police fired live rounds into a crowd, triggering acts of arson and the blocking of roads, as well as ongoing confrontations between residents and members of the Joint Services.
He described the first large-scale protest on April 18 as a “massive one” which he said was not difficult since the communities were already mobilized and it was easy to go to them and explain what the huge increase in the electricity tariff would have meant for the people of Region Ten.
Solomon noted that there was always excess electricity produced from the steam power plant for the production of bauxite which would have resulted in Linden receiving cheap electricity. He said years ago lines were run to take some of the excess electricity produced to Georgetown and it was in this context former President Forbes Burnham advocated the integration of the Linden and Georgetown systems.
“It was done in the context to ensure that cheap electricity is brought to Georgetown; that was in the context he was asking for the two to integrate,” Solomon said.
He said it was in this historical context that residents had been encouraged to use a lot of electrical appliances, and before imposing the tariffs on them, there was a need for them to be educated and re-oriented on conservation and consumption.
Apart from that, Solomon said that budget in no way caters for the economic development of Linden and Region 10, and this was a major blow to residents as many would have positioned themselves for some kind of change in the way the region was treated after the last election.
“The reality on the ground is that seventy per cent of the people don’t have work and I am saying this because I spent almost three years without a permanent job… so I was speaking from a position of experience when I say I understand what is going on in many homes…”
He said there are many qualified and able persons who want to work but the opportunities are not there, and it is not a case of Lindeners being lazy as some are quick to say.
Solomon scoffed at a statement attributed to Prime Minister Samuel Hinds that the current protest actions would set the community back ten years, labelling it as one of “the most blatant exaggerations you can have.”
He pointed out that in the past twenty years there has been no new significant investment in the region which is filled with great potential, but has not been given the opportunity to exploit same. “To say that the region has been set back and to say that there has not been a level of normalcy since July 18 is wrong. If you consider normalcy to be one television station… and don’t fight for that constitutional violation to be [reversed]… then I think the people of Region Ten is quite content to know that they are going to struggle and try to change that…”
Meanwhile, Sharma said he does not believe that the burning of the buildings is the work of Lindeners or people who have the town of Linden at heart. He noted that the terms of reference that would investigate electricity generation in Linden would have to investigate how these tariffs would be arrived at and the building that housed the documents was the Linden Electricity Inc (LEI) which was burnt down.
“Now that is a setback for that investigating team, the school that was burnt down. The people of Linden I am quite certain would not burn their schools down to the extent that the people of Linden will rebuild that school starting on Sunday [last Sunday] by first cleaning it up and then acquiring the material to start building it back.”
He said he condemns the destruction of the buildings and pointed out that they never advocated any kind of violence or destruction to property or threats to life or limb.
As to the three men who died Solomon said July 18 would be a date which would never be forgotten and revealed that soon the Regional Democratic Council would move a motion to have its commemoration committee call for persons to send in their designs for the construction of a monument in the men’s memory. He expressed sadness that to date no one has been charged for the men’s killings and no one dealt with appropriately for the actions taken by the police on that day.
Solomon said they are fighting and struggling for the over fifteen investors that they have spoken to, to be given an opportunity to come into the region and invest, which would correct the economic situation. He said many of the potential investors have not been granted the concessions sought because of the region’s political orientation.
“We would have seen actual proposals that came before this government and all that was needed were some very small concessions, be it land, duty tax holiday, and they were not granted and these investments never materialized…” he said.
He said that right now there are investors ready to open a call centre in Linden that could see some 2000 young people being hired, but he has not been granted the concessions needed.
Downtrodden
Solomon does not want to be labelled a leader, since for him the people of the region and moreso Linden have been downtrodden for so long that they have decided enough is enough. He has lived through the downward slide of the mining town and since he was a schoolboy at the Mackenzie Secondary School he remembered pledging with his peers to make a difference and be part of a positive change, and now he is just fulfilling that pledge.
He said many of his friends are now part of the process of creating change, not only in Linden but in other parts of the country.
“Coming out of my childhood as a youngster growing up in the Linden community and seeing the type of things over the past twenty years [has] not been encouraging with regard to the rich history that I know… of Linden, and what it would have done for this country.”
Being aware of the contribution Linden made to Guyana also motivated the young man to bring about change in the mining town and the region as a whole.
And Solomon is more than just a politician he is also a sportsman and has used his talent as a footballer – he made the national team in his younger years – to engender change. His stint as a footballer was short but he has not forgotten what the game offered him as a young man – guidance, discipline and an appreciation for a healthy lifestyle.
After school he read for a degree in geology at the University of Guyana and the first job he had was drilling a well with the Guyana National Industrial Corporation (GNIC) Ltd. This he said opened his eyes to the way of life for residents of areas referred to as depressed communities.
“It was that exposure of getting into those very depressed communities where you see people without the basic necessities like water and those services that allow people to live as human beings that also shaped my coming up,” he explained.
Following the end of his stint at GNIC, Solomon said he returned to Linden and moved into the administration of football first as the secretary of the Region 10 Football Association, then vice-president and now the president. In those positions he has striven to use football as a tool to help the social upbringing of young people, giving them the opportunity to fashion their lives in a way they could receive good discipline from the sport.
Solomon is also a keen advocate of the rights of women – for him women are among the most vulnerable groups in Guyana – and as the Vice-Chairman of the region‘s Domestic Violence Committee has brought the football fraternity in the region on board to fight for the rights of women. He told the Sunday Stabroek that last year the committee worked on a programme called ‘Man up’ which assisted in shaping perceptions and giving guidance to young men, helping them to understand their role as men and how they can contribute towards the reduction of gender based violence. Some 180 men participated in the programme, undertaken in conjunction with the Ministry of Human Services & Social Security, and it used the gender equality measurement (GEM) scale which saw participants given a test at the beginning, and another administered at the end. According to Solomon when the GEM scale was administered at the end the negative perceptions and attitudes towards women had been reduced by 10%.
And how did he get that interesting name Sharma?
Solomon revealed that his mother attended the Swami School in Cove & John, and found the name – which means someone who gives guidance – very inspiring and in later years gave the name to her son.
