Dear Editor,
I refer to the article in Stabroek News of Saturday December 05, 2020 which opens with the following words:
“In keeping with a commitment by his party to inclusive governance, Presi-dent Irfaan Ali….announced that he has invited all former presidents to a meeting on December 15th to discuss national development.”
Invited are Bharrat Jagdeo, Donald Ramotar, Samuel Hinds and David Granger. Regrettably, absent from the invitation list are the leaders of the various ‘new’ parties who contested the elections based on their respective visions for the country’s future.
So that in the first instance the agenda is likely to start with reminiscences that inform, if not collide, about how mistakes (numerous enough) of the past could be corrected for the future.
In the name of a ‘new inclusivity’ no thought seems to have been given to including any of the ‘new thinking’ enunciated by the new political challengers at the last elections. Why are not their leaderships rated as not being presidential potential at least in their vision for the country?
How can such a constricted, outnumbered ‘dialogue’ be considered as truly appropriate for fundamental brainstorming of a future likely to be pandemicised, by climate change amongst so much more?
The meeting proposed for Decem-ber 15, could only be for setting an agenda for more substantive strategic conceptualisations, and agreement on the other relevant political groups that can make meaningful contributions. There must be substantive agreement that ‘development’ must fall within the purview of ‘reformation’.
It follows therefore that consideration should be given by the initiating group to identify specific subject areas to be assigned to capable workshop groupings, who will be required to produce informed recommendations for action for at least the next decade. Such exercises will therefore involve expert legal inputs, amongst others, from all of which there must be a formal commitment.
The above however is merely to titillate more disciplined approaches to this proposed initial construct.
Yours faithfully,
E.B. John
