Editorial

Even with climate change and political unrest roiling the planet, a recent White House memoir, published anonymously as “A Warning”, would easily make any shortlist of the year’s most worrying news.

It was Mr Eusi Kwayana who first drew attention in a letter to the name-change on the board outside the archives on Homestretch Avenue from ‘Walter Rodney Archives’ to ‘The National Archives’.

The proverb from which this column’s headline is taken, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America.

Whenever a topic of controversy comes up during mutual exchanges among adults, one on which we would not express our views or opinions, whether it be politics or racism, we more often than not sidestep the subject by mumbling some rhetorical or feeble excuse.

Quite recently, and  arising out of a random  series of brief conversations with eighteen children attending secondary schools in Georgetown and its environs, across grades ranging from seven to nine about the frequency with which they are given homework, we received a ‘not frequently’ response from fourteen of them.

On Tuesday via a joint statement from GuySuCo and the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association it was revealed that the sugar corporation has taken a decision to acquire a plant that would produce around 55,000 tonnes of white sugar per annum which would satisfy the needs of beverage producers here, other consumers of the refined sweetener and also regional demand.

While it was being suggested at one point that the coalition arrangement between APNU and the AFC might not survive into the next election, it seems that an amended Cummingsburg Accord has at length been agreed between the two parties.

The political theatre of the impeachment hearings has exposed such chaos within the White House that it was predictable that Trump would try to reframe the story.

Last week, Traffic Chief Linden Isles surprised nobody – except arguably President David Granger who may be less familiar with the data on fatal traffic accidents than the rest of us.

Not for the first time, citizens who use the Charity Wharf on a daily basis have complained about its visibly dilapidated state in the hope that it would finally get the attention it so badly deserves.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is approaching a watershed moment in its existence.

Traffic Chief, Senior Superintendent Linden Alves’ revelation that up to this time in 2019 the number of deaths on our roads have been fewer than for the corresponding period last year (94 deaths so far this year as against 100 in 2018) fits into the Police Traffic Department’s well-worn habit of pressing numbers into service to disguise the truth about the overall state of affairs on our roads.

Public servants will undoubtedly welcome the retroactive pay increase announced by President Granger on Wednesday and particularly the lump sum that will be provided just in time for the Christmas season.

The allocation of state-owned land has long been a contentious issue in this country, so it is hardly surprising that differences have emerged now over how former sugar estates are being leased.

A respected survey of political freedoms recently concluded that global democracy has been losing ground for at least a dozen years.

Last week we reported on a case of a primary-school child being admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital after being beaten by five of his classmates. 

At the recent final Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) disclosure meeting for ExxonMobil’s Payara operation, conservationist Annette Arjoon-Martins questioned officials about the treatment and disposal of hazardous waste, highlighting that there could be serious problems if seepage, for instance, were to occur.

Last Saturday, at the Guyana Pegasus Hotel, the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), for the second time in three months, hosted an Extraordi-nary Congress.

Last week the Government Analyst-Food and Drugs Department (GAFDD) announced that yet another consignment of expired foods had found its way into Guyana and that some of it had breached the official monitoring systems that ought to be afforded by the Customs and Trade Administration and by now, have almost certainly found their way onto the local market.

Martinique and Guadeloupe, the two French Caribbean islands in the Lesser Antilles archipelago, are havens for tourists.