There is a lot wrong in Guyana

There is a lot going on in Guyana. No one can deny that. But while the government is boasting about its achievements the blemishes are far more glaring. The government is boasting about its road programme but it does not admit that as fast as roads are being built the very roads deteriorate.

This may have to do with the engineer supervising the projects. There must be specifications for the various roads. However, one can bet that the engineer turns a blind eye to the shortcomings. There are reports that the contractors only have to pay the engineer a fee to look the other way.

But the roads are not the only things that go wrong. There are more serious issues. Six Guyanese soldiers were shot on the Cuyuni River that runs between Guyana and Venezuela. The initial reports suggest that the soldiers were shot by criminal elements in Venezuela.

These soldiers have been patrolling the river for a while but as the saying goes, ‘What doesn’t happen in a year can happen in a day.’

There have been speculations. Ever since able-bodied men from Venezuela have been coming to Guyana as refugees, fears have been expressed. Some of these men look the part of military men. There is the suggestion that these men are being planted in Guyana.

However, the government does not seem to be worried since it does not even attempt to keep a register of the migrants coming from the neighbouring republic. In fact, it is failing to keep track of these migrants. It does not know where some of them are.

Some have been absorbed into the local labour force, working at sensitive locations as construction workers because they offer cheap labour. If indeed these men are of the military type, they could be operating like the soldiers in the Trojan horse.

For those who are not familiar with Greek lore, in the ten-year war between the Greeks and the Trojans the Greeks tricked the Trojans into dragging a giant wooden horse supposedly left as an offering to the goddess Athena, into the city of Troy.

The Greeks, pretending to desert the war, sailed to a nearby island leaving behind a man, who persuaded the Trojans that the horse was an offering to the goddess of war, that would make Troy impregnable.

Inside the horse were some of the Greeks best soldiers. Despite warnings the horse was taken inside the city gates. By night, the soldiers came out of the horse and took the Trojans by surprise, killing many of them, thus winning the war.

The shooting of the local soldiers also exposed a glaring fact. In the face of calls that major institutions reflect the ethnic composition of the country all the soldiers on the border are said to be black men. All the injured were black.

The bulk of the army, like the Guyana Police Force, is black. No amount of effort has been able to change this fact. And there is no conscription in Guyana. The hierarchy of the Guyana Police Force, however, belies this fact.

But the focus is on the administrative failures. It took the army more than 24 hours to extract the wounded soldiers from the combat zone. Fortunately, none of them died.

Another shortcoming in many eyes is the non-invitation of the opposition to government and state functions. The opposition is not invited during state visits or to government initiated programmes.

Former Minister David Patterson, commenting on the absence of the opposition from the recently concluded energy conference, reported that he was informed that the government would withdraw its presence from the conference if there is an opposition presence.

The most recent exclusion of the opposition was from the Mashramani flag raising ceremony at Public Buildings on Saturday. The Sports Ministry belatedly issued an apology. It accepted blame for the failure. This suggests that there is no standard protocol for such events.

The distribution of the cash grant also highlights grave shortcomings. Last November the government announced the instantaneous distribution of the cash grant. Four months later and a sizeable portion of the population is still to receive the grant.

Senior citizens are forced to be among hordes of able-bodied people. At the end of the day many don’t even get to the front of the line. Some, when they do, are told that their cheques are not at that location. There were those who registered during the exercise but have been told that they did not register.

Some people got their grants with their salaries in December. Some got lucky in the rural areas when the government took the distribution to those communities.

There has been so much talk of corruption that it is not worthwhile to examine this issue at this time. But it does not escape notice that Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo is now admitting to corrupt practices on the part of the government.

He is also distancing himself from the awards of some contracts. On one occasion he said that he was not at Cabinet when the contract was awarded to a company linked to Mikhail Rodrigues known as Critic.

That was the first time that people heard that Cabinet was actually awarding contracts instead of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board.