By GHK Lall- It makes a difference that $200,000, now $100,000, to a broader crowd of recipients. The younger people screamed, and PPP Government leaders listened. It took years, but there is now listening and acting. It would have been courteous to acknowledge the input of former Minister of Finance, Mr. Winston Jordan, but local politics is brutal. Who is he? How does he feature in this? I move along, keep my peace. But I say this clearly: whether 300,000 or 400,000 or more checks to be cut, a battleship of ink will be necessary. The process will require probably more than five months, or when the PPP is ready for elections, whichever is earlier.
The top men in the PPP Government were ready with parliamentary address, their carnivals called press conferences, and the swirl of goodwill in this era of good feeling for Guyanese. All this love. Wherever that love came from, it is there, all $100,000, plus those other tidbits for citizens who have, well, almost nothing. The same top men were bent double, twisted into paroxysms of clenched fists: look at all that has been done. What else is desired? Blood? The sun got hotter than yesterday, which thinned the blood of magnificent men like Mohamed Ali and the even more adorned Bharat Jagdeo. They are all compassionate today, all action oriented. I wish that they didn’t get their feet and gums so tangled.
The $100,000 Christmas stocking is a good thing, whether in December, or in January when the Russians celebrate the big day. Today, after all the wailing and groaning by beaten down Guyanese, money is not only found but both big bosses Ali and Jaggy discovered that all the packages and subsidies lacked the necessary fuel to keep many citizens going.
For men who pride themselves on their smartness and smoothness, it ought not to have taken them so long to discern that Guyanese are limping, dragging. How can they be expected in their longstanding anemic condition to summon the interest and energy to lift a foot toward a polling booth? Where will they find the energy to raise a finger to make their mark? How could they be expected to hold their hands steady and imprint their mark (presumably only once) in the right box? It doesn’t have leaves on it, but enamel. Age prompts self-correction: their cup is made of bitter gobs of mud, considering they can’t buy food.
Well, $100,000, it is, and all Guyanese adults have been properly incentivized. Jet Blue will do well. Jolly good show, brothers Ali and Barry (sounds like a wrestling team, doesn’t it). In politics, timing is everything. So, why not five months before the birth of that bouncing baby boy, elections. Give the people a hundred grand or a million in June or August and when elections come around next year, most people forget. People may forget what Big Kahuna Jagdeo made his economic holy writ. It is inflation, stupid. He himself may have forgotten; give the man a break, because like Excellency Ali, Excellency Jagdeo is busying doing a thousand things at a time (refer to the early Ali).
Now in blistering October 2024, Jagdeo has now undergone a transformation, what is called in the Christian faith an epiphany. It is a waste to use a word like epiphany on a soulless character like brother Bharat, isn’t it? The ways I am tested! It is not fun. Now, inflation has gone out the window and $100,000 is about to walk through the door, with what already have the earmarks of a chaotic process. The Americans have a lovely word for that: snafu: situation normal, all f…. up. According to the Russian educated Jagdeo, the Guyanese economy has all that is required to absorb the inflation blow.
No wonder the blasted Russians never got going from Stalin to Putin. From what was heard from that other finance maestro, AK Singh, the economy was on steroids, a proven champion. How could a peasant like me argue? But despite being a world beater, it didn’t have enough juice to give some relief to poor Guyanese. With oil, it is better contract management. With the economy, it is better propaganda productions. It is why I love these guys like brothers, just like I must appreciate Benito Mussolini, John Gotti, and Benny Netanyahu.
The PPP Government sits on a loaded bank vault, yet it cannot bring itself to be balanced, and not do these disgraceful dances. The money goes where the opportunities for self-help are highest: infrastructure. The poor get what tides them over best: the best in government statistics. Were those food statistics so off, so wrong, that $100,000 is needed to revive Guyanese for a time? It must be, for there was big bhai Bharat polishing his public relations with a promise of “periodic.” Vote for the cup and a top up or two would follow. Like I have said, a hundred is a hundred. But something else must be said. Drs. Ali, Jagdeo, Singh: their half-slips are showing. The cloth may be seductive, but it is an ugly sight.
