Dear Editor,
Mr Hydar Ally has taken to the media, including the taxpayer-funded Guyana Chronicle, to bash the opposition (November 16). This, with full knowledge that the Chronicle would never print a response from the AFC or the APNU.
Mr Ally characterised the PPP/C as the democratically elected government, with a constitutional mandate. He equates the desires of the PPP/C with the national interest. He posits that the opposition stymies the PPP/C development agenda, using anti-national political arrogance.
Mr Ally’s writings reveal either a lack of understanding of government systems or a deliberately dishonest mind, bent on misrepresenting facts, to spread PPP/C propaganda in, among others, the state-owned newspaper.
Contrary to Mr Ally’s assertion, the PPP/C is not the Government of Guyana; the PPP/C is a political party which was elected just as the APNU and the AFC were elected, to form the government. Therefore, the opposition cannot be anti-government since they form part of the legislative arm of the government!
All parts of the government have constitutional mandates. And for the longest while, the opposition has been trying to get the PPP/C controlled executive arm of government to fulfil its mandate. The setting up of constitutional commissions, including a Public Procurement Commission, Integrity Commission and Office of the Ombudsman are well known examples. Yet, to date the PPP/C continues to flout the supreme law of Guyana by refusing to abide by constitutional requirements. Mr Ally strongly indicates that the interest of the PPP/C and the national interest are one and the same. But is that really true?
Was it in the national interest to hire Fip Motilall to build a hydro power station when the man never even built a standpipe?
Was it in the national interest to spend hundreds of millions of US dollars to build a non-functioning factory in Skeldon?
Was it in the national interest to invest billions of workers’ dollars in CLICO, only to lose it all?
And what about the Marriott? Was that fiasco in the national interest?
It would seem that those, and other projects too numerous to mention, were more in the interest of the PPP/C and their wealthy friends.
Mr Ally mentions that Guyanese have a choice. I agree, and I am sure that at the next general election ‒ and local government elections ‒ Guyanese will exercise that choice and get rid of an incompetent clique of leaders and their sycophantic apologists.
Yours faithfully,
Mark DaCosta