Editorial

Tomorrow will mark the 254th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1763 uprising. 

Two days ago, during a trip to Lebanon that was intended to strengthen her foreign policy credentials, the leader of  France’s National Front party paid a visit to the Grand Mufti of Beirut, the country’s leading religious authority.

Just before the 2015 general election, then Opposition Leader David Granger made a speech about changing the political culture in the country noting that the coalition had come together because the nation was at breaking point.

This week in our regular Sunday feature the World Beyond Georgetown, we carried a story on Golden Fleece, a village on the Essequibo Coast, which is one with a difference.

On Sunday the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall was the scene of a ferocious competition. 

Between them, it took the coalition administration and the Private Sector Commission (PSC) a little over a day to confirm what had long been apparent, that is, that the relationship between the private sector and the government, post the 2015 general elections, has never really come to be characterized by any real warmth. 

At various junctures of the life of this 21-month-old government it has been emphasised in the editorial columns of this newspaper that the government must fastidiously ensure fairness in the hiring of persons for all positions given the concerns over the jobs-for-the-boys syndrome and the favouring of persons on grounds other than merit.

It seems that Mayor Patricia Chase-Green and her APNU councillors still have not really grasped the true nature of what has happened in relation to their pet project, viz, the parking meters.

In 2008, the government of South Korea decided to lift a ban on the import of US beef – a health measure imposed five years earlier in the aftermath of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak.

Recently, the issue of VAT being charged on education services became a hot button topic concerning which the parents of school age children made a public outcry.

It was by way of a report titled ‘Impact of Mining: Survival Strategies for Interior Communities in Guyana,’ released by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) that the troubling dysfunction in Baramita, Region One, was made public.

As the potential firestorm continues to brew over the city of Georgetown on the parking meters, the debate rages on, tempers flare, meetings are held, discussions take place, and eventually the dust will settle and the matter will be resolved one way or another.

It is probably not surprising that quite a few commentators on the unfolding parking meter saga have alluded to the role which public protest has played in the evolution of the issue.

On February 8th, the Office of the Prime Minister announced the arrival of a team of constitutional experts from the United Nations System for what was described as a constitutional reform needs assessment mission.

The protest against parking meters has changed the political landscape in odd ways. 

Earlier this week President Trump told law enforcement officials that his proposed wall on the US-Mexican border “is getting designed right now.”

Last month the press reported that the British government had issued a call encouraging persons over 50 years old to take up apprenticeships, and offered incentives to businesses which got onboard with the initiative.

On Monday, a 52-year-old Corentyne man succumbed to poisoning at the New Amsterdam Hospital in Berbice.

Every decade of time can be identified by, or associated with, specific songs or slang or buzzwords that resonate with that period. 

The setting up by the David Granger administration of a Commission on Inquiry into the Public Service and the government’s subsequent agreement to engage the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) in talks on Public Servants’ wages, salaries and conditions of service amounted to important breakthroughs for the Public Service given the unwholesome condition in which it had found itself for decades.