Dear Editor,
After his performance at the last PPP Congress and his 5:30 am meeting with ministers, engineers, Permanent Secretaries and contractors, our President has earned a place in Hollywood as Best Actor. There was much, too much for us to afford comedy and grandstanding by our President with scores and scores of incomplete and poorly executed works, buildings, drainage, roads, etc., for any meaningful discussion with so many ministers, etc. in one place.
As a young fellow I grew up hearing of ministers who got things done and dealt condignly with their subordinates who faltered and failed. I heard stories of Dr. Ptolemy Reid and Hamilton Green who paid surprise visits to the Drainage & Irrigation Project at Somerset & Berks and when the young English engineer could not give a satisfactory answer, the expression on the faces of these two ministers were enough to have the engineer offer his resignation.
Dr. Reid was described as a no-nonsense minister and Green, for years was known as Action Green, ministers who did not perform through laziness were called in by President Burnham and either reassigned or asked to resign. The mickey-mouse operation at State House last Tuesday morning could be a well-intentioned exercise by President Ali but unless the public within a few days is given a full report on the many failings of contractors, supervising engineers, permanent secretaries and ministers, the 5:30 a.m. operation will go down as another PR – propaganda event or an effort to fool the public who are yet to benefit from the schools, buildings, bridges and pump stations not yet completed.
Incidentally Editor, were the contractors for the Bamia Primary School and the Belle Vue pump station by (TEPUI Construction) – Mikhail Rodrigues aka Guyanese Critic, present at the meeting?
Sincerely,
Nigel Bacchus