Glenn Lall knocks ‘visionless’ Guyanese leaders
– raps Pres. Ali for focus on minor issues, while ignoring oil sector
Kaieteur News – Fifty-six years as an independent nation, Guyana remains trapped in a political and ethnic struggle, which has robbed its citizens of the transformation desperately needed to improve their lives. Compounding the situation is the leadership vacuum-with many of the view that our current leaders lack a proper vision for this country.
It is of little wonder that the USAID in a recent report concluded that the ruling party, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and the opposition coalition the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) need to find a way to form a functioning democracy based on power-sharing rather than a “winner takes all” mentality. This, the USAID said, would ensure that the unprecedented wealth in oil reserves can be transparently and equitably managed for the benefit of all Guyanese.
Additionally, the USAID said the transformation of a small country such as Guyana through large oil discoveries will be historic, with some experts referring to Guyana as potentially the “new Qatar or Malaysia” of South America. However, the report said part of the challenge will be to avoid the “resource curse,” a malady which has left many countries rich in oil and gas resources (such as Angola, Venezuela, Nigeria, and others) with authoritarianism, corruption, and poverty. “The predominant challenge is to wisely manage this new wealth by carefully planning a sensible development strategy, ensuring that wealth is not misappropriated by a few, but shared equitably with the entire population and with future generations of Guyanese.
It is against this background, Publisher of the Kaieteur News, Glenn Lall used his Monday evening radio programme – The Glenn Lall Show to urge the current crop of leaders to develop a bold and progressive vision for this country. Bemoaning, the lack of a commonsense approach to this nation’s development, Lall said: “Every day these guys open their mouths, I feel like cry and scream for this country with the kind of bicycle and jackass cart vision they have for this country and its people. Many days when I glance at the newspapers or listen to them as they speak on TV or the radio, I shudder to think what will become of future generations.”
Lall drew reference to President Irfaan Ali responding to critics of the Harpy Eagle Monument at Mandela-Eccles Road roundabout, saying that it is inconceivable that with all the problems befalling this nation, the Guyanese leader had time to respond to such an issue. “A few days ago they open Eccles/Mandela Road and a few citizens complain about some bird that doesn’t look like a Harpy Eagle as a monument at the roundabout, whether this thing look or resemble a bird does that require the President of a country to fight over it? President Ali spent time to tell this nation how he is standing with the people who made it and that was a huge, big headline in the newspapers. You ever hear a head of state get involved with the opening of a road, more so, talk about a monument of a bird, in the fastest growing country on earth?” Lall asked rhetorically.
The newspaper publisher and businessman said, many days he asks himself whether President Ali was living in this 20th century in a country with these massive oil finds. “The other day he talking about call centre jobs and now this week he talking about building pre-fab houses and renting them for cricket. He is telling us that the money from the cricket rental will be used as down payment at the banks to help poor people get loans to buy their pre-fab houses. Something is wrong with these people mentality, this is not even a child mentality, much less a head of state. I wonder many times what goes on in these people’s heads, how this country is going to progress an inch with these leaders…”
He lamented, President Ali “wasting time talking about a bird on a road, but cannot find a group of people to develop a vision that will assist our struggling public servants and make their lives better.”
“I can’t believe to this day that our leaders can be so limited in their ability to think or hire the right people, I can’t understand in this oil producing country, our leaders still talking about building pre-fab houses to rent for cricket.
You know I would have thought that they would have built hotels and housing schemes and rent them out to the oil companies who are going to be here in this country for the next 40 years, in which we can collect money in the billions of USD through rentals not from royalty or the little profit oil, just rental, instead our leaders talking about pre fab-houses for a couple days of cricket, that’s what these guys proud of. I don’t know if President Ali was talking out of his head or if somebody wrote that speech for him, whichever, it’s sad where Guyana is today,” Lall stressed.
