Editorial

There are those who might argue that fate could have at least held off on Haiti’s latest tragedy, the country’s devastating earthquake and its horrendous consequences of a few days ago until the pain and the sense of loss that must still persist over the recent horrendous assassination of the country’s President, Jovenel Moise had been afforded a more extended period. 

Although three senior GECOM employees at the centre of many of the scandals that rocked the 2020 general elections have been removed, it is clear that the elections body remains deeply divided as evidenced by the decision of the three opposition-appointed commissioners to abstain from the vote to terminate their contracts.

Last week President Irfaan Ali entertained the diplomatic corps to lunch in the Baridi Benab at State House.

Headline after headline announces the astronomical rise of Guyana’s GDP; its oil production soaring to nearly 1 million barrels per day by 2025, higher per capita than many of those fantastically wealthy Gulf States; a country set to receive revenues exceeding its current annual budget.

Following the blocking of the Mackenzie-Wismar bridge on Wednesday the matter of Covid vaccinations has the potential to acquire an unfortunate political tinge, the last thing one wants in the middle of a pandemic.

On Friday last, the Ministry of Housing and Water signed $163 million in contracts for the construction of 25 houses, and the improvement of another 118 at Parfait Harmonie, West Bank Demerara, using funding from the Inter-American Development Bank US$10 million Adequate Housing and Urban Accessibility Programme.

Last Friday, George Ignatius De Peana, a son of our soil, was laid to rest in Trinidad and Tobago.

We have moved on from the euphoria and lightheadedness of May, 2015, when the years of wishful thinking that had to do with our unreachable oil resources and the promise that those resources held for national transformation, were replaced by definitive proof that we were not, after all, simply a nation of dreamers.

At his press conference last Monday, which one hopes will be convened at least monthly, President Ali contended that his government had not sequestered vital information on the oil and gas sector from the public.

As the country lurches from one imbroglio to the next, one is forced to reflect on the fact that for the most part those who lead us are lacking a certain generosity of spirit. 

Of all the major projects being undertaken by the current government, a new Demerara Harbour Bridge is probably the most transformative and impactful on a personal and daily level to a large portion of the Guyanese public.

Anyone who hoped that local government elections would usher in a new era of democracy at the community level, releasing the energies and innovativeness of citizens so they could address the problems in their neighbourhoods more effectively, should not hold their breath.

It is not often that being wrong is preferable to the vindication that comes with being right and the recent murder of Omela Singh by her former reputed husband is one of those times.

Two Fridays past, Naomi Osaka, the World’s Number Two ranked women’s lawn tennis player, and arguably the most popular athlete in Japan at the moment, lit the flame at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Last week’s public announcements regarding procedures for public access to government offices and the requirement that unvaccinated minibus drivers not provide a public transport service unless they acquire the Covid-19 vaccine must, it seems, be taken as an indication that the authorities are seeking to employ every measure short of overall compulsoriness to ensure that the country is fully vaccinated against the Covid-19 pandemic.

A year ago today, Irfaan Ali was sworn in as President of Guyana following the months-long attempt to rig Guyana’s March 2nd 2020 general elections in favour of APNU+AFC and a return of the incumbent, former President Granger. 

One hundred and eighty-three years have passed since those freed from enslavement on August 1st crowded the churches to give thanks to God.

Covid-19, the little virus from Wuhan, China has arguably had more of an impact on the modern world than World Wars I and II, the Great Depression and 9/11.

On the 14th of this month a Cessna Caravan belonging to Jags Aviation of the BK Group ran off the runway in Eteringbang, Region Seven. 

On Sunday last, as part of its ongoing UK Child Abuse Inquiry series, the Guardian newspaper published the chilling account of celebrated English judge Lord Patrick Devlin’s insidious and horrific sexual, physical and psychological abuse of his daughter Clare, which began before she was seven years old in the 1940s and continued for well over a decade.