Dear Editor,
On Thursday, October 25, Mahdia was officially declared a Township by President David Granger. Just the day before, several private chartered aircraft with what appeared to be the entire APNU members of Cabinet, touched down for the big festivity, but more importantly, to shamelessly campaign for the Local Government Elections on behalf of the APNU.
Of course the Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan could have done this on his own, but this was another opportunity to use State funds for political purposes. Everyone went along for the joyride. Government even flew in 13 Toshaos from across the region and other local and regional administrative officials from across Guyana to attend this gala celebration that wasted several millions dollars of taxpayers’ money, pushing the economy in further crisis.
And what is even more obscene, is the shape of the monument they have erected to commemorate this event. But I guess it is appropriately designed as a constant reminder to those in the mining town and to Guyanese in general of how this government has shafted them with the broken promise of a good life.
Over the last few months, a huge number of trips were made by Ministers of Government to Mabaruma, Lethem, Mahdia and other interior locations ostensibly to do government business with sometimes three chartered aircraft seen on the ground. But in reality, they’re there to do political work and to distribute the PNC newspapers – the New Nation.
Now that Local Government Elections are upon us, President Granger himself has made several trips to Lethem in recent weeks, the most recent was on October 14 for the “Official Launch” of Lethem Town Week, another manufactured event to utilize State funds to campaign and unashamedly give away bicycles to school children in the middle of a campaign as he had done earlier in Skeldon and Anna Regina in an effort to win votes in PPP strongholds. This is nothing short of an obscenity. Granger could easily have gone to the schools to distribute the bicycles instead of taking the children to make up numbers at the APNU campaign rally.
Then last Friday, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, wearing the AFC yellow-coloured shirt, addressed a “gathering of AFC members and supporters” during a “community outreach” at the Auchlyne Primary School on the Corentyne. While the AFC executive member has a right to address his dwindling support base, I strongly condemn the use of a podium with the seal of the “Office of the Prime Minister” that was used to promote the AFC Local Government Candidates and political agenda under the guise of a “community outreach” by a man who is supposed to be the Prime Minister of all Guyana.
Nagamootoo is shamelessly using his office to do the same thing President Granger is doing, using his position and government resources to promote party politics. The press must have the courage to expose this obscenity, using school children and government resources to build crowds at their poorly attended Local Government meetings at taxpayers’ expense.
This government needs to stop the shameless abuse of State funds to finance its political campaigns.
During the pre-election period leading up to the last Local Government Election in 2016, it is estimated that APNU+AFC cost the treasury almost $50 million flying campaign workers and others to the Lethem and Mabaruma municipalities alone.
In an article published in the Sunday Stabroek, October 28, captioned, “PPP, AFC trade blame for bridge tolls in bid to woo Berbice voters” there are two photograph with misleading captions.
While our General Secretary and Leader of the Opposition has already unmasked the lies and deception that the AFC propagated in this article in his last press conference, it is the photographs in this article that the publishers of the Stabroek News should be concerned with.
The first is a photo of a small section of about 31 persons with a caption that reads, “The small gathering at the PPP’s New Amsterdam meeting” while the other shows a group of 12 protesters with the caption, “Some of the PPP protestors.”
First of all, these were all PNC/APNU protestors, so I recognized this as a typographical error. The problem is, the 12 persons in the photo, were the entire group of protestors that tried to invade our meeting, not “some.” This misleading photo caption gives the impression that there were more persons protesting.
Not so. I was there, and I want to commend the police for a job well done!
In much the same misleading way, the other photo with a group of 31 persons listening attentively to the PPP Leader, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, was labelled, “The small gathering at the PPP’s New Amsterdam meeting.” In fact, this photo represents just a small section of the more than 200 persons from New Amsterdam, a known PNC stronghold, who turned out to listen to Jagdeo.
A sure sign of diminishing support for this duplicitous, uncaring government.
Editor, the word “the” clearly gives readers the impression that only 31 persons attended this meeting. There were well over 200 persons at that PPP meeting in New Amsterdam last Friday evening, and that is a very conservative figure. This is significantly higher than the less than 20 persons that attended the launch of the AFC “Goat ain’t bite we” campaign in the same township on Saturday, October 13, and significantly higher too than the few who attended the APNU meeting at Stabroek Market square the other night.
I hold the greatest of respect for those hard-working journalists whose professionalism and aggressive investigative work help to expose wrongdoing and corruption in the midst of these allegations. And I do admire the courage of the Stabroek News among others. So I am somewhat concerned by the photo captions used in the aforementioned article that downplay the rising popular support for the PPP/C in an area that is known to be a stronghold of the PNC/APNU.
Notably absent from any newspaper, are photographs and coverage of the more than two thousand PPP supporters who amassed at the mini-rally in Corriverton last Saturday to signal a massive PPP victory at the upcoming Local Government Elections. I guess the distance may have prevented coverage of this event by the press.
Yours faithfully,
Harry Gill
PPP/C Member of Parliament
