Editorial

The British House of Commons is not the last word in ergonomic comfort. 

In early July, 300 New Yorkers crowded into a catering hall in Queens for a dinner with the nation’s top legal officer – not Attorney General Merrick Garland, but rather Anil Nandlall Attorney General of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.

Opposition voters would be justified in asking what their party really stands for and whether it is even aware of what country it should be operating in.

The evidence is all around us, but just in case anyone missed it, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed, in what has been dubbed its strongest report to date released on August 9, that the overheating of the earth is caused by human activity and we are running out of time to fix it.

One of the many impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic was the closure of the cinema, with the result that films released last year via streaming services are only now seeing the light of the wide screen, as life gradually returns to prior routines.

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.