Editorial

On Saturday, 9th December, the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) will hold its Electoral Congress at the GFF Training Centre at Providence, East Bank Demerara.

We wait in a condition of frustrating powerlessness for a definitive medical determination as to whether sixteen year-old Golden Grove Secondary School student, Jamal Reid, the victim of last Thursday’s gruesome school yard attack with a cricket bat, will survive his injuries, recover fully, go on to sit his CXC’s and afterwards, get on with the remainder of what, hopefully, will be a productive life.

“There is a distinctive architecture of Guyana. It is to be seen in the many examples of timber domestic buildings for the most part in and around Georgetown.

There are certain things the public can expect at year end quite apart from the customary seasonal events. 

One of the more remarkable achievements of Bharrat Jagdeo – a political operator without domestic peer –  has been his repositioning of his party away from being a champion of the working class to one that enables and aligns its policies to the aspirations and needs of the petty bourgeoisie.

We are back in the season of noisy festivals. They are not supposed to be noisy.

It would seem that President Irfaan Ali has a plan for Georgetown.

In the same issue of the Stabroek News, (Friday October 27) that ran on its back page a captioned photograph of the incumbent executive of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) seeking a ‘third term’ in office there appeared on page 29 a report headlined “Golden Jaguars owed match fees since August by GFF.”

Following the deaths of 20 children after the Mahdia dormitory fire of May 21st, the public’s major interest is two-fold: ensure that such a tragedy never occurs again and establish as best as possible where responsibility lay.

The award for the Worst Customer Service, in terms of delivery of an end product to Guyanese over an extended period of time (dating back to August 1977, if anyone is asking for a reference point) has long since been permanently retired and mothballed in the name of GPL – no explanation required – and its predecessor, GEC (Guyana Electricity Corporation).

The award for the Worst Customer Service, in terms of delivery of an end product to Guyanese over an extended period of time (dating back to August 1977, if anyone is asking for a reference point) has long since been permanently retired and mothballed in the name of GPL – no explanation required – and its predecessor, GEC (Guyana Electricity Corporation).

Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados at the Barbados Labour Party’s annual conference last weekend called on Guyana and Venezuela to ensure there was a peaceful end to the land controversy between them. 

In any normally functioning democracy, the death of 20 children under the direct care of the Ministry of Education would have seen the immediate resignation of the subject minister on a point of principle.

The campaign in relation to Venezuela’s preposterous referendum on Essequibo begins on Monday, and will end two days before it is held on December 3rd.

This newspaper reported last month, following the much touted Agricultural Investment Forum, that Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha had enthused that Guyana was on the verge of achieving a 25% reduction in its food import bill by 2025 (25 by 2025).

Prior to the staging of the event, the Stabroek News’ previous editorials on the preparations for the Caribbean Week of Agriculture forum held in The Bahamas from October 9-13 took the position that if the manner in which the forum was being advertised was anything to go by, we should not expect that the actual proceedings would focus on the food security-related challenges facing the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

It was disclosed yesterday by the Secretary of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Mahdia dormitory fire that claimed 20 lives that it has been decided that there is no need for more witnesses to be called.

After several days of questioning, the  Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) on Thursday, October 26th finally announced what penalty would be meted out to its Senior Petroleum Coordinator, Gopnauth `Bobby’ Gossai  over the scandalous, unauthorised miniaturising of disputed oil expenses in clandestine discussions with ExxonMobil.

Guns are back in the news again, this time as a topic on the agenda of the Canada-Caricom summit ten days ago.

News early Monday morning that American oil major Chevron was snapping up Hess and its multi-billion barrels of oil offshore Guyana came as a surprise even to those in the energy industry.