The elections in the United States are about a fortnight away. People all over the world have an eye on these elections since they feel that the results will impact their countries. And they are right.
The last time Donald Trump was President of the United States there was a direct impact on Guyana’s political affairs. The year was 2020. Guyana’s elections were held that year. The impact of Donald Trump’s administration led to the removal of President David Granger from office.
Pressure was put on some elections officials to fudge the results. There was also the involvement of foreign governments that shared an allegiance with the Trump administration. Illegal ballots were counted. David Granger against the laws of the country, agreed to a recount that exposed all manner of irregularities.
When the dust settled Guyana got its first visit from the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. Needless to say, the opposition was markedly absent from events surrounding the visit. Nobody was invited. This trend continued across the board.
The US elections are due again. It is clear that this government wants Donald Trump to win. Trump has no regard for law and order. He has little regard for truth and above all, he exhibits a disregard for minorities.
Haitians have been accused of eating cats and dogs in one state. Others have been accused of taking black jobs as if there is a specific category of jobs for black people. Crime has been laid at their doorstep and the list goes on.
There is a similarity between the present government and the Donald Trump administration. People in the opposition are marginalized. The difference lies in the fact that the United States have media that immediately fact check statements. They do their research. The same is hardly the case in Guyana so statements by the government go unchallenged.
Because of the fact checking, Trump refused to be interviewed on CBS. He also recommended that the licence of one television station be revoked because of an interview it did with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
On the Guyana side, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency Dr Vincent Adams reported that President Irfaan Ali at the recent Caricom summit, proclaimed that the athletic track at Linden was completed.
Dr Adams was in no position to confirm that statement. To my mind he could have called someone in Linden. Instead, he chose to believe President Ali until he found out otherwise.
Last week, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said that the school being constructed at Bamia on the Soesdyke Linden Highway was completed. One day later Stabroek News visited the school to find that it was nowhere near completion.
There are other examples of lies being deliberately told to the public. These are exposed later but by then the bird has flown.
When the government came to office it was fiercely critical of the Granger administration for work on the Cheddi Jagan International Airport. Minister Juan Edghill vowed to complete the project by correcting the deficiencies he claimed that the previous government allowed.
Today, four years later the airport is still being worked on and there is no end in sight for its completion.
There is the gas to shore project that should have been bringing gas to a factory on the shore by next month. This was to have been the end of the first phase. The nation now knows that this is nothing but a pipe dream.
Just last week, it became known that ExxonMobil that had agreed with the Granger administration to bring the pipeline to shore is now lobbying to have this government stop the project. Something must be wrong but the government is saying nothing.
The very government had promised to review the contract that Exxon had signed with the Granger administration. There was no mention that the previous contract was signed by the then President Janet Jagan.
It had described the contract as severely flawed. Now it is saying that it will not review the contract. And to compound the issue, former Prime Minister Sam Hinds simply told Guyanese that they should be thankful for whatever pittance they are receiving.
Other instances of government pronouncements that have fallen flat include the promise to create 50,000 jobs. This has not happened and the people are not prepared to ask questions. It was the same with the communication cable from Brazil that was supposed to make communication in Guyana dirt cheap.
That cable died along the way as did the US$6 million investment. That was reminiscent of the Skeldon Sugar factory that was supposed to produce sugar cheaper than it ever was in the country. Bharrat Jagdeo’s dream project is stillborn and Guyana is poorer.
One can only wonder at the amount of money wasted with impunity. At the same time the public servants with their tongues hanging out of their mouths are waiting for a decent wage. If they are lucky they will soon get a $100,000 cash grant, the equivalent of a month’s salary for most.
The same cash grant will be received by President Ali, Bharrat Jagdeo and every senior government official.
So it was that I listened to President Irfaan Ali when he made a site visit to the construction site of the Karasabai Secondary School. He read the riot act to the contractor and to the consultant. He said that should the school not be finished by next June there would be liquidated damages and contract termination. He has to be dreaming.
I am certain that the contractor laughed because he had heard a similar threat dozens of times. The North Ruimveldt Multilateral School is still to be completed years after the stipulated deadline.
The Cemetery Road project was a similar case. Jumbies chased away some workers and not others. In the end that project is said to be completed but at what cost?
Forget the wells that should have been completed but have not started. Do the same with the government complex to be constructed at Eccles.
It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who said that life is but an empty dream. The Everly Brothers said it all in 1958. “All I have to do is Dream”. Martin Luther King also had a dream.
Statements by the government these days simply create dreams.
