Editorial

As the world of sports and the entertainment industry become more intertwined and re-shaped by television’s advertising dollar, the salaries of sportsmen and sportswomen, management and coaches have escalated into the stratosphere.

Last Saturday afternoon, a fire ‘of unknown origin,’ gutted sections of the building housing the Guyana Police Force’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

On November 17th, after two weeks of concern that his government had nonchalantly conceded that the statutory period for the forensic scrutiny of US$9.5b in ExxonMobil’s expenditure had expired, President Ali provided an assurance that the gigantic sum would be audited.

It was only the week before last when President Irfaan Ali told the nation that discussions were ongoing on wages and salary increases for public servants, and that an announcement would be made very soon.

There is a man who once slept the night inside a dead horse, threw lobsters at FBI agents and drew Kate Winslet like one of his French girls.

The Oxford English Dictionary, the bible of linguists, took more than seventy years to compile.

What began as a whisper in the world of fine dining last week, ended with a clamour on Friday when it became known that James Beard award winning Swiss chef Daniel Humm, a vegan advocate, was parting ways with the famous Claridge’s hotel at the end of the year over its rejection of his vision for an all-vegan menu.

The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) recently held two press conferences in order to declare that it was partnering with the Kashif and Shanghai (K&S) Organization for the staging of two football tournaments at the end of this year.

After the October 2 fire that flattened the complex that used to be the Brickdam Police Station, the far-fetched tale about the origin of the fire and the official ‘ticking off’ and ‘hanging out to dry’ of the Guyana Fire Service for what was deemed to be its underperformance on the day at what, contextually, was the country’s most significant fire in recent times, never really ‘washed’ with the public.

The purpose of any Procurement Act is to ensure that projects funded by the public purse are awarded to companies that are in compliance and capable of executing the works within time and budget.

There is some quirk in the minds of politicians which makes it possible for them to espouse certain principles when they are out of office, and then promptly do the opposite when they are in government.

Societies and economies are fluid. Political parties must adapt to these “tides in the affairs of men” or else languish “in shallows and in miseries”.

Guyana’s CSEC results have now been made public, and while they reflect a decline in performance over previous years that will probably not excite the anxiety in the Ministry of Education that otherwise might have been the case.

Having pleaded guilty at the beginning of this month to committing misconduct in a public office, two members of London’s Metropolitan Police are currently awaiting their fates, which, according to the judge presiding over their case, more than likely will be jail terms.

The West Indies defence of their T20 World Cup title, branded by Cricket West Indies (CWI) as Mission Maroon, as expected, has ended catastrophically.

No member country of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has come even close to experiencing the litany of tragedies and trauma which Haiti has, historically, had to endure.

Draft amendments to the Representation of the People Act (RoPA) have finally been released by the PPP/C government after more than 15 months of inexplicable dawdling.

President Irfaan Ali winged his way to COP26 in Glasgow last week without the nation having much idea about what Guyana’s climate change plans were.

The news last week that the Government of Guyana had earlier this year written to Chinese Ambassador Cui Jianchun requesting a loan of upto US$1.5B for six infrastructure projects perhaps went over the heads of many readers.

Buoyed by the presence of the Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs, the top brass of the Guyana Police Force participated in a symposium last Saturday discussing Integrity in Policing.