Dear Editor,
Roads will be built. New buildings will be erected. Fancy lights will adorn avenues and other recreation sites. Public places will look different as they change appearance. None of it will make Guyana a better place if it is led by the PPP. The reasons are obvious. Although the PPP falsely boasts that 98.3% of Guyana’s population has access to potable water, after nearly five years in office and billions of dollars spent, filthy water still comes through our taps when it flows. Newly constructed roads are decaying rapidly. Government services remain erratic and unreliable. Robberies by petty thieves and big shot crooks in high office remain a menace to the society. The abusive and irresponsible use of the roads makes them perpetually unsafe. Irregular and unreliable medical services continue to threaten our lives. We are tormented by these truths daily under an incompetent and corrupt government. Yet, President Ali and other prominent leaders of the PPP try to deceive us about life in Guyana. They want us to believe that the hardships we face are a figment of our imagination. For him and other leaders of the PPP, deception is the art of good governance.
The most recent example of the use of deception to mislead Guyanese can be found in the following remarks of his: “I said before with GPL, that we inherited in 2020, a scenario where no investments were made on the transmission and distribution line.” These remarks were made to some especially hand-picked reporters who were ‘interviewing’ Mr. Ali, notwithstanding the fact that evidence to the contrary exists. Editor, here is the evidence of Mr. Ali’s deception that serves this country no good but reveals that he and his Party are not worthy of leading Guyana. A Power Utility Upgrade Programme or PUUP was signed between Guyana and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). This programme was also co-sponsored by the European Union (EU). It was signed by the PPP but implemented by the Coalition government. The purpose of the programme included among other things “reducing electricity loss and improving the reliability of the transmission and distribution systems”. Editor, more than USD37 million coming from the IADB and EU was invested in this programme. Yet, President Ali said that the Coalition did not invest in the transmission and distribution systems of GPL.
To further prove his deception, I wish to recall a NewsRoom article dated September 8, 2016, which reported that GYD1.6 billion was approved by Cabinet to cater for capital works, which include “… upgrading the distribution systems and other facilities to improve electricity distribution.” That was equivalent to USD8 million of the USD37 million gotten from the IADB AND EU. As additional evidence of Ali’s deception, I refer to a Guyana Times article dated November 25, 2017, which pointed out that GPL had started “the rollout of a multibillion-dollar upgrade to the electricity distribution network for villages on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD).” The spending on that activity is also referred to as an investment.
To disguise his incompetence and failure in the electricity sector, Mr. Ali refused to tell the specially hand-picked reporters listening to him that an additional USD20 million was borrowed by the Coalition government from the Islamic Development Bank in 2018. This story appeared in Kaieteur News of September 9, 2018, and it pointed out that the money was for the purpose of investing in the continued upgrade of the transmission and distribution lines of GPL. The foregoing information points out that in three consecutive years, money was either used or acquired to invest in upgrading and improving the transmission and distribution lines of GPL.
Editor, Mr. Ali peddles his deception about GPL to cover up the mismanagement of that company by his administration. Even two leased power ships failed to undo the damage done to the sector by PPP mismanagement. In this regard, the failed promise of “no blackout during the holidays” refers. The electricity problems that Guyana is facing today are a direct result of the failure of his administration to manage the electricity sector properly. The sad consequence of his deception is that errors and substandard works are trivialized. As a result, poor service will continue into the future if the PPP remains in office.
Sincerely,
Mervyn Williams,
Former Member of Parliament.