Dear Editor,
‘Prorogation’ is a big word. It is difficult to pronounce, and even more difficult to understand. And in a country in which business seems to have gone on as usual, the concept of ‘dictatorship’ is an abstract one.
Months ago, in May of this year, I wrote: “What Guyanese need to understand, a lesson that we should have learned from our previous history, is that totalitarian regimes are not abruptly thrown into existence by the flip of switch. More often than not they are the result of the failure of a body of citizens to recognize and resist a gradual undermining of democratic systems within a particular polity.”
The prorogation of parliament is simply the latest significant step in the PPP’s descent into dictatorship, and left unchecked it would not be the last. But how does this apply to the ordinary man who is forced to look at bread and butter issues?
It is simple – in a country that has registered economic growth in consecutive years, a growth boosted by the increased exploitation of our natural resources, there is still great hardship. Money is pouring in from the mining and timber industries but it settles at the top, with just a little trickling down or being deliberately sprinkled when the government decides to keep people in line.
The PPP doesn’t care about Guyanese people. When the President was asked about the millions of dollars the AG used to benefit his wife, he said it was a private matter, while Luncheon said that it was nothing out of the ordinary. What this has revealed is that the PPP government can routinely approve state money for the use of non-emergency medical procedures for employed relatives of cabinet members and have no apology for it.
In contrast, Christopher Ram in July highlighted the case of Basdeo Gobin, a patient of the local Heart Institute who applied to cabinet for urgent heart surgery, and died while waiting for cabinet to approve $1 million, a fraction of the money the wealthy AG was able to access.
In short, the situation exists where former President Jagdeo can fly to Miami to treat a fever at the cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers, cabinet members routinely approve million-dollar state funding for each other and their relations, while up to recently we had stories of mothers sharing beds at the Georgetown Hospital.
More importantly, all this was taking place even when there was Parliament. The moment the political opposition threatened a no-confidence motion, which would have required the Ramotar administration to defend such behaviour, in response the President decided to put Parliament in limbo. Meanwhile, his ministers still collect their fat salaries, they are still free to give each other state-funded grants, Jagdeo is still in his mansion with all his bills paid for by taxpayers – the only difference is that the people elected to watchdog this behaviour no longer have a forum to question it. To add insult to injury, poor parents have to line up for a pittance of their own money given back to them – $10,000 – so the government can pretend to show how much they care, even as the children of many PPP officials are sent to private schools where the tuition is more than the cost of the raised UG fees.
We’ve come full circle back to colonial days where a greedy elite feeds off of the people with no scrutiny from representatives of the people – taxation without representation. This is the same thing that spurred the American War of Independence, while we in Guyana remain too divided to confront in unity the people who are bleeding us dry. The average Guyanese citizen needs to realize that hunger and poverty and humiliation do not discriminate – they are the same in Enmore as they are in Buxton, and that no matter the colour of your skin and who you vote for, nobody in Pradoville 1 or 2 is going to extend a dinner invitation to you any time soon even as they grow rich off of your sweat.
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson