Holding the government to account
Kaieteur News – Mr Lenox Shuman, Hon. Deputy House Speaker, is he entitled. The coalition opposition must stop reliving last year’s ugly elections, and begin “holding the government to account” (KN, February 28). Although there is some discomfort with how Mr Shuman has aligned himself and looked after himself, it is invaluable that he is on the right track, and one, that the coalition should take to his heart, and wake him from his sleep.
We had expected, and many in Guyana had harbored some reasonable hope, that Mr. Shuman and his fellow newcomers to the political trenches of Guyana’s snake plague would be that breath of fresh air, representing the independents , the dominant neutral, and the cheeky mouthpiece. . The expectation of many citizens, long disgusted with the long record of PPP and APNU + AFC leadership failures and betrayals, was that Mr Shuman and his comrades would be difference makers, icebreakers and spoilers. They are generally disappointed, with one after another helping themselves and feasting on what the cunning leadership of the PPP has extended to them. They have followed the path of those who went before them well beaten: they have bargained with the devil, received gifts from those who have destroyed the hopes and dreams of the peoples of this country. As such, they have all backed themselves into a corner, where they can’t tell the new government so much boo about the rising tide of wrongdoing by current leaders since their return to power.
Despite all this, it is with some interest that we receive the Hon. The Deputy Speaker’s timely call – wise and constructive – for the opposition to fulfill its duty and step up to represent the citizens of this society who believed in it and stood for it. The opposition has been derelict in discharging its obligations on a host of material issues, some of which we note at present. At the head of the pile are the government’s actions in relation to its control of the nation’s oil. PPP leaders have pledged an oil-primrose route and distributed thorn and thistles; or, in the more familiar local idiom ‘pimpla.’ There is no sharing of information; only the continual silence speaks to the sinister. The only thing that is shared with Guyanese is how many billions of dollars will be spent for this or that expensive project, some of which will have to be borrowed. We believe that much of the 2021 billion-dollar budget will have to be borrowed. The people who will be responsible for repaying the increasing billions in debt burdens are being told that, and not much else.
While the new government has made a living in withholding from the Guyanese public need to know information, the opposition has been a lost cause in capturing its voice, strength, and believed powerful contributions all needed today as never before. The opposition has been a shocking picture of chaotic apathy, perceptive disorder, and impotence of leadership. When all Guyana – not just its jaded and shell-shocked supporters – need the opposition to be a viable presence not to be betrayed or messed around, the group has been nothing but onerous albatross. Come to think of it, the coalition opposition has been like a particular situation that is now well known to most Guyanese, both in the city and in the country areas.
The opposition is increasingly appearing as one of those houses that used to have a large and busy family, but which today is empty and quiet because the occupants, to use the local Creole, have disappeared . ‘ Thus, the house stands as a monument to abandon, ruin and ruin. We invite our fellow Guyanese, especially coalition voters, to look carefully and hard at the state of opposition and then decide for themselves, if what we say is not right, and extremely so. When the opposition behaves in this way, it fails more than its disillusioned people. It fails all the people of this society. We encourage him to engage in rigorous self-examination, only to appreciate the magnitude of the immense disappointment he has brought in appearance and in spirit and reality.