Dear Editor,
Former Local Government Minister, Mr Norman Whittaker is on our case again. He is suffering from a case of state powerlessness. Its syndrome includes an illusion that everything he did was superior to what anyone else did, and restiveness with any programme at the local level. Unfortunately, the intentions of the last government were bad, and ultimately their actions reflected ruthless efforts at control and tantrums when they could not do so.
He is worried that President Granger came to Linden last week and made some whistlestops, and the rapturous spontaneity unsettled Mr Whittaker’s cerebral flow of assumptions about things going awry with the new administration. President Granger’s visit was planned months before it actually took place but his busy programme and difficult national environment which he inherited did not allow for an earlier visit. However, the ordinary man wanted to see and embrace him, and let him know they are depending on his stewardship. Mr Whittaker would never understand this.
Mr Whittaker has an obsession with belittling the Linden Town Council. Outside of the city council we were the only municipality confronting any of his mismanagement. As the leader of the pack I take full responsibility for what he perceived as inappropriate. He says MP Rutherford was not correct on Linden now being liberated because the IMC Chairman said that Linden was being ignored. The former Minister knows very well that my praxis does not permit me to play games with my constituents and if things are not going as I expect then I will say so. The practice of the PPP is that regardless of the impact of its decisions, its adherents must follow blindly.
The toll booth was closed on the 26th September, 2013, exactly two years to the date before this recent letter appeared. The PPP has honed the skills and has scripted the book called ‘The way to control local organs in a bi-communal polity.’ Sometime in the first half of 2013, Mr Whittaker approved our budget and exhorted us to maximize our revenue bases in order to provide effective services to our constituency and to help raise the funds to pay for the increase in the minimum wage promulgated by his colleague the Minister of Labour. This was taken seriously and we started to put systems in place for increasing output and stopping the leakages at the toll booth. Our efforts bore fruit and for the first time we put pay scales into effect rather than have the employees all bunched up with a common salary. Mr Whittaker was livid when this happened and sent some serious mail whilst placing his officers on our trail to dismantle the scales. We did not relent and the wrath came shortly after with the closing of the toll booth. My colleague in one PPP controlled council asked me how I was able to pay the increase because his council was not able to do so one year after the Minister of Labour made the minimum wage mandatory. Now that is our difference. They will never say to the Minister or the PPP that the policies are killing them. But we will say when the heat is burning our skins rather than suffer in silence.
We believed that that the message should have been sent very early that what the PPP did to the Linden municipality was egregious, thus restoring the toll booth promptly was an absolute high order priority. Lindeners at home and in the diaspora were asking us when the toll would be reinstated because they too felt very offended by the hand of invidiousness.
Mr Whittaker must know that the $15,000 paid to mayors and IMC chairmen in the smaller municipalities in the PPP’s time was atrocious, and in spite of numerous complaints and proposals these all fell on deaf ears. In the divide and rule game they kept paying stipends to two PNC dominated mayors and excluded the rest to say that they were not discriminatory. All these issues I brought to Mr Whittaker’s attention and he promised to correct same as the case was with his predecessors; but nothing happened. So why is he concerned now about councillors wanting to be better paid for their services? We have no apologies for asking for what is due, especially seeing what his cabal did with the resources of this state. With their fat $1M per month ministerial, parliamentary salaries and other perquisites, they had no time to build a good local government system. Their mindset was horrid.
Mr Whittaker should be having a spiritual whipping when he talks as though he fought and cared for local government, because the opportunity for the government to demonstrate magnanimity was filled with spite and disingenuousness. The entire $1B for the Clean up Guyana campaign was spent centrally and doled out like Mother hen feeding Percy and the chicks. When I complained publicly they rushed to Linden and did a hurried programme that was useless. They claimed they dumped 264 loads of solid waste at Dacoura. That much garbage is four months of material which Dacoura cannot hold. So they were fooling no one with the putrid tricks.
CDCs were formed recently in Linden but the elections were conducted by the Deputy and Assistant REOs not the Director or his Deputy. The information given to Mr Whittaker is erroneous. He said in his time the Director Mrs Shury conducted these. This administration has taken it one step further down the road of openness and transparency. So there is nothing for Mr Whittaker to cry for. He said the council has been given the CIIP programme. Well during his reign he did not see to it that the programme came to Linden when it rolled out in other Regions over one year ago now. They were busy looking after certain regions for electoral purposes. The right place for the CIIP is the town council. Why must you control the community projects from the centre unless you want to control the process for political reasons? We knew all the tricks in the previous D&I but we will be far more balanced using the people with the greatest need. No more padding of lists and drawing down money for hundreds of ghost workers. Councillors have to be accountable and when found wanting we will sanction.
In 1992 there were 1100 workers under the Minproc management in the bauxite company; today it is just about 500. One can deduce from Mr Whittaker’s argument we are worse off now in terms of the largest industry in Linden.
I should let him know that up to 1992 we still had the best potable water supply and electricity system in Guyana. These were still available 24/7 but we used HFOs to generate electricity, a cheaper solution to diesel. When he tells me who dismantled that system, sold the plant without collecting a cent and allowed some scamps to get away with US$5M due to repair the power plant, then I will continue the conversation. Oh, before he forgets ask him about the big campaign juicy fruit of the new water plants in Linden. I wrote Minister Keith Scott on complaints I received about the poor water supply in many parts of Linden. We toured last week and our fears have been confirmed. The campaign promise will be a big fat disappointment and to consider that the hustle costs us $2.2B.
With the lack of stats we can only go on empiricism and perception. In 1992 we felt better as a community with loads of contractors and money circulating. Yes, the infrastructure needed repairing but there were signs that money was beginning to flow and circulate through the ERP. In fact the LS highway was given a loan of US$15M for repairs. Seeraram was used as the contractor but the new government hired this contractor to do the other eight bridges and killed the Linden one repairing the bridge near Splashmins. Still the best bridge was done by the Linden contractor at Splashmins. I have a ton of things to say but I will conclude by saying that the mean spirited regime killed off the entrepreneurial class in Linden.
I am not paying much attention to the other servings of desserts offered by Mr Whittaker, but will just say that the issues have been developmental although in many cases the regime turned them into a political match. Genuineness went through the window. Mr Whittaker will see enough nastiness to clean up till the next elections.
Yours faithfully,
Orrin Gordon
