OPED: The government wants to look good by lying

Last week, I was keeping a medical appointment when I should have been recording the Notebook. That created an opportunity lost for me to keep listeners informed.
The fact was that I had a pain by my left ribs. As old people would say, it was wind pain. I had done some blood works a few days earlier.

The results came just about the same time as the pain, so my daughter who is actively engaged in the medical field, and a sister who is also high professional in the field, concluded that my kidneys were in a mess. Some readings were high indeed according to the initial works.

To make a long story short, I went to a medical facility in the city and on the instructions of my learned sister, underwent an Ultra sound examination, an EKG and did blood works. Her note said something about Troponin to evaluate for heart attack.

My kidneys are alright but I had a lot of gas. In fact, liver, heart, and just about everything else is in perfect order. The gas is being treated. Of course, my familial medical experts are now telling me to stop drinking. Fat chance. I suppose they want me to look good. Looking good is what everyone pursues.

People put on their best clothes, wear colognes and perfumes and on occasions try to speak so well that it matters not whether they get the words right.

Some, if they can afford it, decorate their homes to the extent that sometimes one must wonder whether the outward appearance is more important than what is inside.
Governments are no different. They say things to look good. I discovered that this was the case during the presentation of Budget 2023. I heard the Finance Minister say so many things that I wondered whether I was living in the country of which he spoke.

He spoke of the vast array of roads that his government constructed. A fact check revealed numerous attempts at deceiving. I smiled when one Member of Parliament exposed the falsehood about a synthetic track being completed at Linden.

The Sports Minister then said that the Linden track would be completed this year. It was a case of from being completed to—to be completed.

There was the announcement of the distribution of many house lots. I saw pasture land, no infrastructure and not a single landowner being able to even erect a post on the land.
Prince William Street in Plaisance being upgraded? That is what Minister Juan Edghill reported. Aubrey Norton produced a photograph to show one of the worse roads in the country.

I remember nearly three years ago the government announcing that two sugar estates were being brought back on stream. Money was voted—a lot of money. From the look of things, nothing is happening. No work is going on at these estates so they remain closed.
For some time, the nation was regaled with the news that more than seven thousand sugar workers were severed. On Monday it turned out that the number of severed sugar workers was just over four thousand.

It is now necessary to find out whether the government paid out money to seven thousand people when it should have paid only four thousand.

And despite the money being invested into sugar the production is some 40 per cent lower than it was three years ago after the closure of some of the sugar estates.

There was so much more. Roads were built today and by tomorrow they had deteriorated. A case of here today, gone tomorrow. They would have to be reconstructed but nobody can fault the government when it said that it built so many roads. It had to look good in international eyes.

There is talk about training some one thousand nurses. Eight years ago Dr Leslie Ramsammy was training one thousand nurses a year. Whether that ever happened is not known. What is known is that there is a dire shortage of nurses.

Some got a new salary scale. One of them told me that they were told to stand up and celebrate for media purposes. That didn’t happen and more are leaving. Guyana is almost at the point where relatives must go into the hospitals to “tidy up” their sick relatives. There are not enough nurses to do this.

Billions of dollars are being spent on education but sadly the number of illiterates is growing. When many of us were growing up the illiterates were those old people who had to leave school early to work in the fields. But many of them were better equipped than some today.
Go into police station or travel on an aircraft to see the number of people who need help to write statements or fill out the various immigration forms.

Talking about the expenditure on education is supposed to make the government look good.
Glenn Lall isn’t helping the cause. There he was on radio telling everyone that Vice President Jagdeo got caught with his pants down. Of course, it was Glenn Lall who always says that every word that Jagdeo utters is a lie.

That was hard to believe until recently. So there was Jagdeo talking about revisiting the oil contract when he was in opposition then flattering to deceive. Today, he simply said that he would not be renegotiating the contract.

Minister Vickram Bharrat told a crowd that Guyana is not yet collecting any oil money. That should pacify the public servants. However, the truth is something else.
There is another thing. On the occasion of state visits the Mayor of Georgetown was integral. The visitor was often taken to the Mayor for the key to the city. There were ceremonies in the Promenade Gardens.

These days the Mayor is not even aware that there is a state visit. The Minister or person welcoming the visitor tries to look good. That opportunity must not go to the Mayor.
And Mr. Franklyn Bobby Vieira hopes to be mayor. Go for it Bobby and force a return to the glory days.