Acknowledging that the APNU+AFC coalition government has made mistakes, Working People’s Alliance (WPA) Executive Member Tacuma Ogunseye on Friday night urged forgiveness and pleaded with supporters to vote at the March 2 general and regional elections.
“Every vote is important,” said Ogunseye, emphasising that the coalition “cannot afford to lose” the elections. He was the main speaker at an APNU+AFC coalition rally at Back Circle, East Ruimveldt, Georgetown. The WPA is a member of APNU.
According to Ogunseye, the coalition’s leadership recognises that there are supporters who need “massaging” as they perhaps became disenchanted at what they may view as the failure of the APNU+AFC administration to address the areas they see as priorities. To this, he said that the coalition government is not a perfect one, it has made mistakes, and must acknowledge that all of the expectations of their supporters were not addressed.
The WPA executive attributed this failure largely to the problems the government found upon assuming that role in 2015. He said that it had to fix those issues before beginning its own programme. Upon realising this, however, the coalition should have explained this to its supporters, he said.
Ogunseye apologised on behalf of the coalition for this ‘failure’, and said it is deserving of the people’s disaffection. Disaffection, however, he said, cannot win elections. He added that it is important for supporters to forgive the coalition for that shortcoming.
Collective bargaining
Meanwhile, saying that collective bargaining was largely dismantled under the PPP/C, Ogunseye said that the coalition had an opportunity, but failed to properly reinstate that process. He noted that it instead implemented largely unilateral increases.
Declaring that workers must never be stripped of the right to determine the value of their labour, Ogunseye said he has not heard an explanation from the current government as to why there was no collective bargaining ahead of the 2019 year-end increases and bonuses. He said that the coalition now recommits to engaging the public sector towards an involved process of determining salary increases, and said this would be done once the APNU+AFC alliance returns to power.
On procurement legislation, Ogunseye acknowledged that the coalition government failed to amend the laws to allow for ethnic equity in the allocation of contracts.
He accused the PPP/C of using the current procurement legislative framework to give billions of dollars in contracts to Indo-Guyanese, to the exclusion of other ethnic groups. He claimed that this and other similar policies has delivered 90 per cent of Guyana’s economy into the hands of Indo-Guyanese and Portuguese Guyanese.
Noting the procurement laws require contractors to demonstrate experience, and have the machinery to carry out works, and arguing that only certain contractors were able to build capacity and acquire equipment under the PPP/C, Ogunseye said this had continued under the coalition government as it has failed to address the issues.
This, he said, is a failure which “works against the Afro-Guyanese community and other non-established groups.”
