Dear Editor,
America needed 100 hours of Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait in 1991. The mighty Israelis required 90 minutes at Entebbe to free its hostages in 1976. In 2023, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali deftly dispatched with the state of this country in the mere matter of 78 minutes. It must be the advance of technology. Perhaps, it has something to do with the size of the brain, the packaging of words crammed into canned formations. Thanks for nothing, Mr. President. For a man, a national leader, who could be garrulous with the frivolous, 78 minutes was nothing if not what is mischievous.
Something has gone to the President’s head; perhaps, it can be traced to who whispers in his ear, what Exxon told to him that has to be said, done. C’mon, Dr. President, one reporter per media house? In this democracy, and place of free expression, one question only, Mr. President? I detect presidential muzzling of the right of the people to know what is happening in this “fastest growing economy in the world.” Tell the world, I exhort respectfully Mr. President about all the hungry people in Guyana, and those who can’t buy basic fare, don’t even have bus fare.
Indeed, Guyana’s Gross Domestic Product tripled, but an illiterate could have done the same with what is below the seabed. Autopilot, sir. As the economy is tripling, why are so many in Guyana struggling? I hear or read about these astronomical GDP numbers (they are), but the secret, sir, is where does 90% of it go? In whose hands, if not those fabulous few, the less than 1% of the people in this country? President Ali, now gifted with gab, made doubly sure that his spin would grip and drip in his choice of emcee for the royal occasion.
We have a government and a political leadership that limit its appearances before the people, then limit them regarding when they can open their mouths and then how often. One question only, Mr. President? Is 78 minutes the best that the presidential system, presidential cranial capacity, can handle in Guyana’s glorious oil revolution? And for those who have persisted before with inconvenient and uncomfortable questions, there always is that outfit, PPP owned, controlled, and protected, online predators going by the lascivious name of Live in Guyana to maim them.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall