Dear Editor,
The Peoples’ Progressive Party is not the Party it was under Dr. Cheddi Jagan. It has become a money-making operation for itself. ‘PPP’ now stands for what the PPP are really doing: Punishig Poor People. Consider the following. Why did the PPP have Mabaruma/Kumaka residents without running water in their homes for close to two years or more? Can Jagdeo and Irfaan live without running water for two years? No. But they put Mabaruma/Kumaka residents through that. What about the Amerindians across the country who continue to suffer so much neglect? Similar story in Mahdia. As of 10 days ago, only one ferry was serving both Kumaka and Port Kaituma. Kaituma itself is a big contributor to the economy, producing a lot of gold and now manganese. It costs Barticians $6,000 return to reach Parika by speed boat and $500 on the government ferry that takes a year and a day to reach Parika. Why don’t these areas have more and faster vessels? Because that is not going to increase the bank accounts of the PPP.
The PPP, in plain and simple black and white, has been responsible for all the underdevelopment and deficiencies we see all across Guyana. Inadequate transportation has stunted economic development of Kumaka and Port Kaituma, as well as all those other areas investment in transport infrastructure would have made a difference. The list goes on and on and on. Laterine pits in public schools accompanied by dysfunctional sewage systems and inadequate water supply, numerous unnecessary deaths in our public hospitals, not to mention all the other complaints that never make it to the press, a pathetic education system that fails thousands of children every year, going on decades now, large scale unemployment while they carry a few companies abroad to promote jobs in Guyana and distort the labour market here, tens of thousands of people living in poverty who need house lots, who can’t find the money to pay for a one, much less build a home, which is one of the reasons Housing doesn’t give them house lots in the first place, even though in quite a few instances, they can arrange to pay for the house lot. Not to mention a tax system which has been a weight around the necks of Guyanese, taking money and food off of our tables.
I am not making this up. This is happening right now, every day in Guyana. The PNC signed the 2016 Agreement to give away our oil, and the PPP has been following on the heels of the PNC going on 4-plus years now, doing the exact same thing. And Jagdeo and Ali can stand up and tell us about cash grant and bridge and whatever else while Guyanese are kept in poverty. Sugar workers and other PPP supporters are fed up with the PPP getting richer while even today, watching and waiting for the $100,000 Cash Grant the PPP said they were going to start sharing out since the end of last month.
Sincerely,
Craig Sylvester
