The government is taking a breath
Kaieteur News – The Irfaan Ali administration started its turbo charged season. The first few months saw a rapid pace of movement.
All the work was being done and the PPP / C seemed to be in a hurry to make up for the five years he had been out of his job.
Some people complained about not receiving water for years. And simply because that has also been the case over the past five years, the problem was solved immediately. People complained about the poor state of roads and were stable. We were told that the backlog of house lot applications had been cleared. If you had driven around the country, you would have noticed roadworks happening quickly. There was a crazy rush to get things done.
The minister in charge of sport visited on several grounds. The people in Agricola and Buxton benefited from work done to upgrade the sports field and by distributing sports equipment.
Things have changed. It seems as though reality is now stepping in and the government is now slowing down. Or he simply holds his breath for the next burst of economic development.
The APNU + AFC also started in a blitz – blitz cleanup, city and Augean stables cleaned. But then things started to stagnate, and it seemed as if the Coalition had a President who had lots of good and useful ideas but didn’t have a good team around him to put those ideas into practice.
It takes more than one person to run government effectively, something that hindered the PPP / C between 1999 and 2011. When centralized authority can restrict development. But even more restrictive is when it is not possible within the different sectors to implement what is planned and what is needed.
The PPP / C has some problems that will need to be resolved if it is to maintain the pace of development that it hopes to honor its Manifesto pledges. There have been some appointments that have proved to be wrong.
But unfortunately, PPP / C Presidents in Guyana governments have never been keen to make Cabinet changes as this often implies some form of underperformance. One junior Minister has been abominable and outspoken in carrying out ministerial duties and really should have been higher. Although a senior minister has been virtually invisible throughout the term of government so far and does not appear to be an ideal fit in the assigned Ministry.
Concern remains that the President is the substantive Finance Minister. Under the Constitution, once a MInisterial portfolio is not assigned, it is said to be held by the Head of State. It is unheard of for Guyana not to have a Finance Minister other than the President. Dr. Ashni Singh is a senior Minister in the President’s Office significantly. The President should not be holding the substantive post of Finance Minister. And one wonders what the attraction is, given his own heavy workload, that he would not have appointed Singh as Finance Minister.
There are some Ministers who have actually come back but should not have come back from the last government. And there are those who are new and who are looking forward from the periphery.
The PPP / C promised a great deal in the pursuit of the campaign. And they were not anticipating the pandemic or the five-month election dilemma.
But decision-making also seems to be part of the problem. It’s been more than seven months since the government was founded and so far only a few names have been mentioned for Ambassador appointments, and those names have sparked controversy. These appointments should now have been replaced by the Foreign Ministry.
It is difficult to understand what is taking so long for the Government to announce these appointments. It is not good for the country that new appointees have not been named for the critical postings in Caracas, Paramaribo, Havana, Beijing, Brasilia and London. Names have been suggested for Washington and New Delhi.
If the pace of development is to accelerate, it is important that Guyana has capable people in these capitals in order to care for the country’s interest. The President also needs to look at some of those in his Cabinet and within the non-performing public bureaucracy and to make the necessary changes. This is no time for deadweights.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.)