Editorial

There is a stark divide in Guyana’s youth population today; referencing young people aged 15 to 24 years.

When the new Gecom chairman was announced last week, the subject of age became a hot topic of discussion.

On weekdays, during the morning peak hours, when the movement of traffic along the East Coast corridor, heading into Georgetown, is at its heaviest, the railway embankment, covering the distance between Mon Repos and Sheriff Street becomes one of the high-risk stretches of coastal roadway.

On Thursday, for the third consecutive year, the APNU+AFC government unilaterally announced hikes in wages and salaries for 14,000 public servants and computed how much this will cost.

No one who is reasonably au courant with events in Guyana will believe that President David Granger did not anticipate the consequences of his actions.

Soil degradation is hardly a commonplace phrase in the media, and it looks dull next to the vocabulary we use for oil (ultra-deepwater wells, synthetic crude, hydraulic fracturing), but the ground beneath our feet is literally disappearing because of over-intensive industrial farming and global warming; and, like petroleum, soil isn’t a renewable resource.

Just one week into the month of October, President David Granger while speaking to reporters at State House concerning the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the alleged plot to assassinate the Head of State, put forward the view that it is important to ensure that the Guyana Police Force (GPF)  can be trusted and is efficient in addressing crime.

It is not enough. It is not anywhere near enough for the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to dismiss the two City Constabulary officers who were implicated in the sexual assault of a vulnerable 15-year-old child, which occurred in August.

Over the last month President Trump has been very critical of the National Football League (NFL) and its players for kneeling during the playing of the American national anthem before the start of games.

It serves no meaningful purpose to restate what, by now, are the well-known facts of the protracted saga of City Hall versus the growing army of pavement vendors who now populate most of the empty spaces in downtown Georgetown.

On March 2nd 2015 after the disclosure of medical aid by the state to senior PPP/C officials including $2.1m in cosmetic dentistry for then Minister Pauline Sukhai, the newly formed APNU+AFC coalition quite rightly expressed its outrage.

It happens to all governments: they come in with the best of intentions coupled with the belief that only they are equipped to ameliorate a bleak situation.

Four years ago at the Oscars the comedian Seth MacFarlane joked that nominees for the best Supporting Actress category would “no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.”

“Read my lips: no new taxes!” This phrase was one of the most quoted sound bites emanating from George H W Bush, speaking at the 1988 Republican National Convention, in accepting the Republican presidential nomination.

Food is big business all around the world. The very obvious reason being that in order to live, people have to eat.

As the popularity of international athletics soared in the late 1970s with the increase of television coverage, athletes no longer had to surreptitiously receive under the counter payments or ‘gifts’ for their appearances at meetings, as changes in the amateur rules legitimately allowed the reward of appearance fees and bonuses for setting records.

Preying on young women, particularly schoolgirls using minibuses as public transport, has become commonplace among some minibus drivers and conductors. 

Word that a ‘Delivery Unit’ could be established to speed up the pace of the government’s sprawling Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) must reflect deep worry in the administration over the glacial pace of many key projects.

Last week everyone was in nostalgic mode: there was the 60th anniversary of the PNC engaging the attention of the one side, with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 1992 general and regional elections being the focus of the other.

The massacre in Las Vegas that has left 58 dead and more than 500 injured, will inevitably reopen the Sisyphean debate on America’s obsession with firearms.