The VP seems to suggest that 22 is greater and more burdensome than 65 to work with

Dear Editor,

It’s no secret that  the supporters of the  PPP, in their hatred for  APNU+AFC,  would like  to see anything  initiated by the Granger regime dismantled  by the  PPP, not without  unjust  cause. The attempted rigging by APNU+AFC irked us all, but something of vital importance to our future (NRF), initiated by the APNU+AFC, is about to be dismantled and fashioned into the likeness of NICIL. This mode of action can bring the Guyanese people nothing but agony down the road.

NICIL is a company that was formed by President Hoyte to sell out state assets without any consultation from the real owners of the state – the people. Successive  PPP regimes and  APNU+AFC had used it for  the  same  sinister purpose and  in the same  manner  – as if the state assets were the  personal properties of their  political  parties. With the  president em-powered to appoint the  board of directors, and the  Natural Resources  Minister  to appoint the two committee  members, the Natural  Resource  Fund (NRF) Act is on a head on collision course with  the advice from  the International  Transparency Organizations calling for the  NRF to  be alienated from  political  interference  as far as possible. In short! With the president and minister appointing the top people, the NRF becomes 100 percent politically controlled, in the footsteps of NICIL.

It is ironic  that on the same day the particulars  of the  NRF bill was being presented  by the  minister  of  finance in Parliament, the PPP Gov’t  was able to get  supplementary monetary allocations working  with  a 65 member  Parliament. Notwithstanding  the VP, brainchild of the  new NRF, is on record for saying that it would  be “impossible  to get anything  done” with  22 people  drawn from  a  wide  cross section of the populace to get a wider participation on what the NRF should  and should  not be spent on. Is the VP essentially suggesting that 22 is greater than 65? I am appalled at the VP’s concept that seems to suggest that a bureaucracy of 22 is greater and more burdensome than one of 65 to work with. Mathematically, the Coalition 34 as a majority of 65 definitely pales in asininity to the VP’s thesis.

Is the VP losing his mental fortitude? Or does his profane analysis stem from the uncertainty or fear of how much of the 22 will be loyal to the PPP”s motive to obtain free access to the NRF to plunder the people’s patrimony? With a twisted oil contract that the Gov’t refuses to renegotiate, the NRF is the last link that offers the people a little semblance of inheritance from their patrimony. If the NRF bill is passed in its present proposed state, that final link would be broken, heralding the resource curse.

Sincerely,

Rudolph Singh