May 17, 2017 Source

Dear Editor,

The continued failed developmental policies of the successive governments of Guyana persist and reverberate across the Caribbean and indeed the world. Headlining this week in Barbados and even drawing front page coverage in the leading newspaper (The Barbados Nation), is the newly touted law that magistrates and judges should automatically remand Caricom nationals (meaning Guyanese citizens) in the island illegally before their cases are heard. The law will also require that the defendants be refused bail.

Just last week, a Guyanese national, Teri Alicia Forde, was placed before the District ‘A’ magistrates court (Barbados), to answer to a charge of Disturbance of the peace. Forde pleaded guilty to the charge and was immediately remanded to the Dodds Prison, for what is otherwise a bailable offence. Her attorney, Arthur Holder, begged the court to place her on bail.

This kind of ‘eye-pass’ is foisted upon Guyanese living abroad because our successive governments have failed the Guyanese people. These foreign courts are taking advantage of Guyanese because they know that many Guyanese would rather live in disrepute and squalor in another man’s country, than suffer the poverty-stricken hell they have to endure in their own. Imagine that with a population of less than one million, in a country that possesses the kind of natural wealth we have, our daughters and sons are made to flee their beloved homeland, in search of a better life?

Many of the folks leaving Guyana remain in those countries illegally, selling their bodies and consciences, just to make a living.  After 50 years of independence, none of the governing administrations have been able to put any kind of developmental policies in place to reduce the rate at which Guyanese flee this country. None of the other Caribbean territories possesses the kind of natural resources that we possess, yet all of them offer a better, safer, more acceptable living standard than we do. Why is that?

How is it that we have remained so blighted for so many years? It is as if our leaders are docile and inept. We elect one successive government after the next, and none seems to have the wherewithal to cast a vision that will invite us to rally around them. Where is the strategic plan for the country? Where is the legislative agenda for sustained growth and development? What is the endgame? Where is the accountability? It is as if we are just limping along. Our politicians seem more interested in securing the good life for themselves and their families.

Pull any Guyanese aside and ask them: What is the plan of the new government to improve your personal wellbeing? They would be unable to tell you. And it is not as if this is only true of this Granger-led administration. Pull another Guyanese aside and ask them: If the PPP wins the next election, what will they do to improve your personal well-being? They will not be able to answer you either. As a nation we are just drifting along. Our leaders seem unable to inspire us to greatness. We follow them mostly because they look like us. Or we vote for them only if we are able to benefit in some crookish, or ethnically biased way, when they are in power.

And if I sound somewhat indignant, it is because I am! I love my country and I am appalled at the racial and political ideological underpinnings which drive our electoral process. When the PPP is ‘in’, those who support them condone even their most vile behaviour. When the PNC is ‘in’, those who support them are willing to turn a blind eye to their misdeeds and selfish behaviour. And all the while, our academicians and those who are able to flee, are bailing out of the country, leaving only the desperate, destitute, a few patriotic folks and a bunch of career politicians who know that they will always get a pass because it is a case of the blind leading the visually impaired.

Meanwhile, the Guyanese born Teri Alicia Fordes, are left to rot in foreign prisons, all because most of their elected leaders are more concerned with their fat-cat salaries.  The country continues to be mismanaged while our politicians use the race card and some nonsensical political ideologies to position themselves in power.

Ms Forde, on behalf of the independent thinking Guyanese – who are still working towards a real change in Guyana – I am sorry.

Yours faithfully,

Pastor W P Jeffrey

Practical Christianity Ministries