President Ramotar Interview (Guyana Chronicle Newspaper) King Solomon, two mothers, and the converse leadership qualities of the PPP/C and PNC aka APNU/AFC examined in… Written by Parvati Persaud-Edwards Saturday, 11 February 2012 12:10 A chat with President Donald Ramotar IN THE Old Testament, when two women claimed motherhood for one child, wise King Solomon... ordered his guards to cut the child in halves and divide the two parts of the child’s body between each claimant, whereupon one woman immediately rescinded her claim in favour of the other, begging the King not to cut the baby even if she had to forfeit her claim. Her selfless sacrifice emerged from a heart full of the boundless love of a real mother, unlike the second woman who was prepared to see the child destroyed rather than admit that she was a false claimant; likewise when the PPP/C withdrew its request for a recount of votes following some questionable activities by some GECOM returning officers in former PNC strongholds such as South Georgetown, that Party did so knowing quite well that it was risking its parliamentary majority because peace in the nation has historically been of more importance than power to the PPP; and the PNCR was looking for any ploy to create chaos in the land in efforts to wrest power in what they have termed a “velvet revolution in an Arab-spring”. Indeed the troops had already been amassed and ready to take to the streets, with the usual dire consequences to PPP supporters and the business community being collateral damage. In an interview with the Guyana Chronicle President Donald Ramotar admitted that the PPP/C leadership knew, from the reports coming in from its polling agents, that their party had amassed a minimum 53% at the polls, and their decades of experience provided them with the logistics to determine accuracy to the nth degree, thus the results coming out of GECOM did not tally with their count, which had always been accurate in the past during elections under their watch. 2011 election was rigged Incidences at several polling stations, where that party’s polling agents had been bodily ejected, generated the realization – too late, that the election results were being rigged, and certainly not by the PPP/C. PNC/APNU/AFC meant to grab power through the 2011 elections – by hook or by crook, and they strategized accordingly. PPP, with all its experience of the Machiavellian instincts of the PNC and its periodic affiliates, were yet ingenuous in expecting any kind of fair play from the opposition collective, and they have paid dearly for their unfortunate naivety, because leopards never change their spots. Commenting on this issue as posited by Chronicle, the President responded: “I think you’re right on that score. They did a lot of wicked things in South Georgetown and some other areas, where they created an atmosphere not to have any PPP/C polling agents around, and they managed to get them out by terrible hostility and threatening violence and so on. I think, also, that you’re right again and that they penetrated GECOM and controlled (to some extent) the elections machinery, where they were not even taking instructions from the Chairman or the Chief Elections Officer and they were doing a lot of manipulation at that point in time. “Even with the counting, I understand that they kept people far away so that they could not see what was happening. That was confirmed to me by independent observers; so you are right, I think that there was some level of manipulation on the part of the opposition. Opposition threat to peace in the country Without divulging all the reasons for the PPP/C’s withdrawal of its rightful request for a recount of the results from the polling stations involved, President Ramotar revealed that, among the reasons for this withdrawal was the latent threat to the peace and stability in the country. He said, “We were told…We wanted to ensure that there was no breakout of violence, because we think that would have held back our country if we went down that road. As far as the development of Guyana was concerned it would have had a very negative effect and so we chose at that point in time to call off the recount; but that was not the only reason.” Asked whether he is convinced, based on his decades of experience of elections in Guyana, whether he thinks that the PPP/C was robbed the President responded: “For sure, I think we had over 50%. I think we lost some votes, no doubt, but I don’t think we lost enough to bring us under 50%, but the results were through manipulation. “My own realistic assessment was that we had probably between 52 – 53%.” Nevertheless, in the interest of the nation, and in the tradition of the PPP, the President is prepared to work with all the opposition parties toward a cohesive society and optimal development in the country, whereby every Guyanese continues to benefit equitably from the nation’s resources under the administrative watch of the PPP/C in Government. However, despite the President’s efforts toward consensual decision-making through a tripartite arrangement suggested by the PPP/C, the opposition collective are still engaged in games of one-upmanship, even while the opposition parties are marching on the streets and mounting protest actions over one pretext after another, keeping PPP supporters and the business community on tenterhooks, wondering when these groups would break out into their customary destructive violence. Deceptive opposition Expressing his disappointment at the continued deceptive behaviour of the joint opposition, the President said: “We had a meeting with them. My objection to them is that, if we are discussing… because we are three parties in the National Assembly, then they went behind our (PPP/C) backs and worked out the whole arrangement of Speaker, Deputy Speaker and all of those things in order to try to manipulate us, so I would say that they acted in bad faith. “Our objective was, and is, as it has always been, is to create a new atmosphere of partnership and working together, because we have always had a position…we are not against working with other forces, but first we have to build trust; but every time we have reached out to the PNC – even in this instance when they promised to discuss and work together, they renege on their promises and act in bad faith. “As recent as 2003 we came out with a document that spoke to the importance of building trust, and I thought that this was a good opportunity for us to work together to build the trust that is needed, especially at this point in time, to take our country forward. However, that they have done what they did clearly shows that they are acting in bad faith. “It is parliamentary practice within the Commonwealth that, even when the government is a minority in relation to the joint opposition, that the Speaker comes from the government side and the Deputy Speaker comes from the opposition. That is the traditional parliamentary practice. “This is a traditional good faith convention – just like the good faith convention with the Public Accounts Committee, whereby the opposition always chairs that committee. “There is a separation of powers, but the Government and the Parliament have to work closely with each other and most of the laws that are passed are laws that are generated from Government, so therefore a lot of the business in Parliament are Government business; that is why the rules say that Government business must take priority in the National Assembly. “In the interest of efficiency, in the interest of the smooth running of programmes etcetera… because of the role of Parliament in modern-day society, it is important that Government should have the majority. Ralph Ramkarran served as Speaker with distinction “We nominated Mr. Ralph Ramkarran for Speaker, not because he was a member of the PPP/C, but because he is a tried and tested man who served in the position of Speaker with distinction. He has been extremely fair, so much so that all the opposition parties, as well as the governing party have, from time to time, congratulated him in the manner in which he has conducted the affairs of the National Assembly – the fair and unbiased way he managed the National Assembly. My nominee was someone whom has distinguished himself…whom we all have experience with, for serving the Parliament in a fair, just and balanced way. The opposition joined together to vote against Mr. Ramkarran’s candidacy; and press reports are speculating that the arrangement between the two opposition parties is that Mr. Trotman of the AFC will be given Speaker in an agreement that will give the chair of parliamentary committees that are traditionally held by opposition parties to APNU. For the opposition to vote themselves into the position of Speaker, and also, in this instance, Deputy Speaker as well, is in contravention of all general good faith practice of parliamentary democracies. Smooth transition of government construct Speaking about the transitory phase of the previous and current PPP/C governments, President Ramotar said that the process has been a smooth process because of the collective efforts of his colleagues in the government that he leads. “We developed a lot of the projects together, and these are in our Manifesto. We are still working hard to bring in the Amaila hydro project, the deep water harbour. I campaigned on continuity because I think the projects we programmed (during the tenure of former President Bharrat Jagdeo) are vital for the development of Guyana; each one has the possibility of transforming our country, such as cheap energy from hydropower, communications, transportation…the road linking Linden and Lethem, the agriculture sector, which we think can go very wide. These are some of the things that can be major contributors to the economy of the country. Disappointment over loss of Linden seat The President expressed his disappointment at not achieving a seat in Linden, which had grown very dear to the PPP/C, especially because of the warmth they had received from Lindeners before the elections. “As a politician I am always disappointed when these things happen. We had a seat in Linden the last term, so I am disappointed that we lost that seat this time around. I think we lost some support there largely because the opposition carried a very strong racial line in their campaign. We received 17% of the votes, which is still very good, but I cannot deny that the racial line on which they campaigned did have an impact. It is their normal strategy; and this time it was worse because they pushed the racial line in a very hard way.” Rejecting the suggestion that this will, in any way, lessen the PPP/C development initiatives in Linden President Ramotar said: “The projects that we have onstream and in the pipeline for Linden will continue, because we think that they are important for Linden, for the people of Linden; and for the country itself.” Development stymied by recalcitrant councils Development of communities in regions that have been won by the opposition has proven very difficult for Central Government, because the councils which are controlled by the PNC/R have stymied development for those regions in efforts to prove government neglect of those communities, when instead the opposite is true and the government keeps injecting funds that seem to flow through a porous receptacle without the communities benefiting in any significant way from the extra assistance provided to the councils, whether by way of cash or resources. The neglect is highly visible and negatively impacts the lives of the citizens who ultimately blame the government, which seems to be the aim of the opposition-led councils. Cases in point are New Amsterdam, Linden and, worse than all, Georgetown. Leadership of City Council very callous On the Georgetown situation the President lamented “My own view is that the present leadership that the Georgetown City Council has are very callous. They collect a lot of money from government, then they give themselves big increases in pay; there are even charges of corruption at all levels on what they are doing with the money… paying for themselves all kinds of things with the money that they collect: they are using City Hall now as a sort of headquarters for APNU… the APNU youth movement; so they are destroying the city… they are not looking after the interest of the people in the city. “My own view is that a good solution to that is to try to get the local government elections as early as possible so that we can have a renewal of democracy on the ground, and we are going to work toward that in the new parliament. “There are some Bills that we have to pass, which we have to work on very quickly so that we can have local government elections as early as possible.” However, with the one-upmanship game being played by the opposition, which is glorying in its muscle-flexing strategies in Parliament, passing bills, especially in a timely way, seems to be a daunting task for the government. However, the President is convinced that a resolute pursuit of common goals to move the nation forward could motivate the opposition to cooperate with the government’s developmental thrust. Increasing investments indicative of Private Sector confidence in country’s economy The President said: “We will have to negotiate with them, and then we will have to keep the public well informed of what is taking place within Parliament, so that we can also mount public pressure, because the public must also get involved in many of these things. “Since we have been in government in 1992 the Private Sector has supported the developmental thrust of the government, and I have no doubt that they will continue to support the developmental thrust of this government.” The President posited that this support is indicated by the level of investment being injected into the country. “The level of investments made last year (by the business community) is a clear demonstration of their confidence in the direction in which we are going, and I think that they are going to continue to support the development thrust that the Government has, because we have done a lot to facilitate Private Sector development and growth within the society. “It is clear that they have a big role to play, generally, in building our productive forces and developing our country. In a large way they have worked in that direction, and we still need more investments – to create more jobs in the society, to build the productive capacity of the country, to provide more modern services to the society…we need all of those investments to continue and expand. “Partnerships between government and Private Sector have worked well, and this will continue because I will work very closely with the Private Sector… try to facilitate their development; and I also intend to ensure that they pay their taxes and their dues so that the country as a whole can move forward.” Restoring viability to the sugar sector On the troublous issue of the future of sugar in Guyana and the loss of confidence and disillusion of some sugar workers in the administration, the President elucidated: “(The drop in morale of sugar workers)… has happened because of some things that are outside of our control. “In 2010 the sugar industry had a 36% cut from Europe in the price of sugar… just by the stroke of a pen… by ending an agreement that the European Union had with the ACP countries, which cost us more than US$45 million per year. “Also our turnaround plan (to save Guyana’s sugar industry) included the largest single investment in the country, which is the modern hi-tech factory in Skeldon, which has had its difficulties and we had to put resources into this initiative as well. “All of these have coincided with a period of time when the weather has become extremely erratic, which has caused many of the difficulties in the sugar industry. I think we did not do a very good job in explaining all of these things to the sugar workers so that they can understand. “You can see the frustration of the sugar workers, which is causing more problems for the industry, because of some of the agreements that we had, historically, such as where a sugar would work for four days and be qualified for all the benefits. Because of this, it has led to a very low turnout, where people are turning up for work just enough that they do not lose their benefits, so the turnout is not as high as it should be when the industry needs full turnout; so it is a combination of issues and, now that the issues have been identified, we are working to resolve them. However, this will take time. “We are looking more and more at mechanization in order to compensate for the loss of labour in the fields; we are looking at adding to our range of value-added products… in Skeldon we have installed a co-generation facility to generate electricity to help to compensate for the loss of revenue; we are producing greater quantities of packaged sugar. Along with these measures we continue to review the situation all the time in looking for solutions to all the problems in the sugar industry: So I think that the situation in the industry is a temporary one and that we can overcome these problems through hard work and dedication by all of the stakeholders.” No reciprocation to opposition’s racist actions and rhetoric Strong Afro-Guyanese leaders who were former stalwarts of the PNC have emerged during the recent past as supporters of the PPP/C government’s developmental thrust, which they perceive as being beneficial to their respective communities and the President hopes to deepen these partnerships in efforts to engage communities so that Guyanese people, as a collective nation, can “…get more involved in their own development. “Not because the opposition has had some success in pushing the racial line could we reciprocate, because that would be a disaster for this country. We have to continue to develop this country in a holistic and equitable way, which we have been doing all along, because we do not have a single policy to help one race at the expense of another race. We pride ourselves of the fact that government resources go to where they are most needed for the general development of the country. It is not dictated by who lives where but by the needs in the society. The President strongly refuted the contention by AFC’s Khemraj Ramjattan that the PPP/C government buys security for their supporters by neglecting their communities in favour of PNC/APNU strongholds. “That is far from the truth and it is peddled by some people who are no different than the PNC, which use racial lines to gain political support,” the President observed: “That is totally untrue but the AFC has several different lines. When they go to black communities, they say that government is discriminating against black people; when go to Indian communities they say that government is neglecting them to look after black people; so these are charlatans that we are dealing with, who have no qualms about using racial sentiments to get support. Discrimination runs counter to spirit of the PPP and the Jagan legacy “I subscribe to the principles of… I have very strong faith in the collective intelligence of the Guyanese people and I think that people will catch them out in the near future, because we, by our actions, have demonstrated that these things that they are saying about us are not true. “We will continue to do what we have always done, which is doing the best we can for all the people of the country. We do not discriminate between the people in our society. That goes against the philosophy of this party. It goes against everything that this party stands for, and, most importantly, it goes against the philosophy of Dr. Cheddi Jagan, whose thoughts continue to guide our party and its work. It goes against everything in our political genes. “It is there for anyone to see. Look at the security forces; look at the government services; look at NIS; look at all the government-run institutions all over the country, and then tell me if this perception that we are talking about is not an engineered perception that has no basis on reality. “I am proud to have worked in the PPP party for so many decades; and now that we are in government we are able to implement many of the plans and programmes that we had, and since we have been in government from 1992 to now we have transformed our country; we have made life better for our people; we have improved all the infrastructure; we have lifted the quality of life; we have expanded wages and workers’ benefits – from a mere (frozen) $3,000 in 1992 to a minimum wage today of an approximate $40,000; we have expanded the tax base from a mere $48,000 a year to $480,000 per year; we have created far more jobs; we have given people the security of owning their own homes; we have improved the health services; we have improved educational services, so much so that we are seeking to have universal secondary education in our country. “I am proud to have been part of that process that has transformed Guyana in the way that we have transformed it during the years that we have been in office, and I look forward that my stint as President would add, in a significant way, to what has been done before me so that the quality of life of the Guyanese people can continue to grow.” The Parliamentary committees, many of which are chaired by the PNC, including the vital Public Accounts Committee, which takes government officials, not excluding the Prime Minister and other ministers of government to task over their accounts, is one of the methods the PPP has devised for inclusive governance, where opposition parties are integral to vital aspects in some areas of governance, for which they are handsomely paid. Yet, despite their clamour for inclusivity in government, many opposition members are frequently absent from meetings; then when unanimous decisions are made in good faith during those meetings, opposition M.P.s often argue against those decisions when they are subsequently presented in the National Assembly. If this immature behaviour normally displayed by opposition elements is projected into this current parliament; then the National Assembly would certainly duplicate the tower of Babel. Nevertheless, His Excellency Donald Ramotar, President of the Republic of Guyana, is determined that nothing or no-one would be allowed to impede the development of this nation under his watch
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 01:02:23 +0000
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