The election season is well and truly on. There are the campaigns and the drive to photograph the crowds at the rallies. Social media is full of these photographs. There are also the comments in some cases. The ruling party had a large crowd at Linden, stronghold of the major opposition party.
Aubrey Norton, at a subsequent press conference, said that this is nothing new. He said that the PPP has been known to bus in large numbers of people to meetings in opposition strongholds. He said that the results at the elections always expose the machinations of the PPP. The same comments followed the PPP meeting at Wakenaam.
There have been other talking points. People have been coming out of the woodwork to talk about corruption in various circles. In an interview, a man surfaced to talk about gold smuggling between Guyana, Venezuela and Brazil.
The amount of gold talked about was sizeable. The manner in which the gold was allegedly moved was astonishing. According to the man who said that he worked with Tamesh Jagmohan, the gold and the movement of cash defied inspection.
Jagmohan has since come out to deny the allegations. This is not the first time that he has been accused of gold smuggling. The Royal Canadian Mint stopped taking his metal as questions were raised about the possibility that it was contaminated with smuggled Venezuelan ore. This was back in the early 2020s.
There have been reports of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With all these allegations and international reactions one would have expected the authorities to keep a close watch on Jagmohan’s operations.
Then there are the allegations of land sales. A close associate of the government claimed that a Minister was involved. The amazing thing is that all these disclosures surfaced on social media. People have been talking.
There was a time when such disclosures would have been hidden. Technology has caused some serious problems for those in authority. There is a marked silence but there must be unease in the corridors of power.
Even as the powers that be want to convince the electorate that all is well in this green land of Guyana the word out there is that there is massive corruption. And corruption has always haunted the government. It cost them the elections back in 2015.
This time around with the massive oil wealth that is not being distributed among the people, one can imagine the extent of dissatisfaction even among supporters of the government. The talk about infrastructure development has not helped the situation, especially when one considers that the infrastructure collapses soon after construction.
To compound the situation are the failed promises. There was the promise to resurrect the sugar industry. Despite tons of money being poured into sugar, production is far below what it has ever been. The promised opening of the sugar factories has not happened.
The sugar workers are not helping the situation. They always want more money and the government is always rushing to comply. People are seeing this and wondering what it is that they should do to enjoy what the sugar workers are.
At the same time people are not rushing to become sugar workers. This has been the case for a long time but the government was bent on proving everyone wrong. So it kept trying to jump start a dead industry.
There has been no sparing of the funds. There was the nearly US$200 million investment in sugar that yielded not an ounce of sugar. That money went into the black hole and that is that. Guyana is still repaying that loan.
Rose Hall sugar estate should have been producing sugar. The ratio of money to sugar production at that estate is less that one to five. The word is that the government is spending money to buy votes.
Of course it has been spending money to secure votes for a longtime. There were the contracts to any and every one. People with no experience were hired to build roads.
There were those who were paid to wear the jerseys and caps. The package containing the jerseys and caps also contained money.
Amazingly, there were others doing the same thing. In fact, people collected from all sides. People want money, none more so than those in the depressed areas.
There was an attempt on the Guyana Police Force. President Irfaan Ali announced mass promotions when he had no such authority. He then got the Police Commissioner to make the promotions as the statutes dictate.
But word had leaked out that many of the announced promotions will not be made. It is said that those who refused to laud the president on camera would be denied the promotions. The promotions had to be a case of vote buying.
Taking people’s money comes at a cost. Some are expected to photograph their ballot and forward the picture to the payer. This is being challenged. People want the Guyana Elections Commission to ban cameras from the polling booth.
Of interest is the fact that Jamaica would be holding its elections two days after Guyana’s. There have been none of the problems associated with Guyana. The announcement in Jamaica came a mere three weeks before the elections.
There has been no problem with the voters’ list. In fact, Jamaicans can’t understand the issue of the voters’ list. But then again, the elections commission there is so different. Guyana is really different.
