AS WAS forewarned by the PNC/APNU/AFC’s pronoucements and threats, and sanctioned by the Speaker’s overruling of Acting Chief Justice Ian Chang’s ruling that the Opposition parliamentary parties have no powers to cut budgetary estimates, which is the sole prerogative of the Government as mandated by the Constitution, funding for vital sectors are being butchered by the infamous scissors and axes of the anti-developmental Opposition combo.The people of Guyana are merely ‘collateral damage’ of these illegal Opposition actions. The consequence of these anti-developmental actions is beyond the scope of imagination of an opposition leadership that drove this nation’s development paradigm into subterranean levels while they were in government; and this seems to be their intention even as they sit on the opposition side of the House, because their every action and pronouncement since they jointly attained a one-seat majority in Parliament post elections of 2011, has been detrimental to nation-building and has had negative impacts on the nation’s economic growth and social development.

During consideration of the 2012 Budget estimates, Granger had declared his intention of showing the Government “…who is boss.” And since then that has been their obvious intention, not development of the nation, nor enhancing the welfare of the Guyanese people, but merely to demonstrate “…who is boss.”

After all, the people who voted them into their seats of power are merely deemed ‘collateral damage.’

The travesty being enacted in Parliament at every sitting during the Tenth Parliament has significant cost implications, in that an approximate $2M of taxpayers’ money is being wasted during these theatrical perambulatory and absolutely futile exercises.

However, even as the coalition Opposition wield their nefarious cutting implements, ever since the fiasco of the 2012 budgetary cuts, Government has been superlatively finding ingenious paths to facilitate walking through the economic minefield they have laid in the country, and have continued to blaze innovative trails to implement transformative developmental imperatives in the country, albeit within constrictive parameters.
Even the blind could see that the AFC, which has lost its relevance in the national political demographics, except to provide those seats that empower the PNC in parliament to concretise their threats of making Guyana ungovernable under a PPP Government, is merely hanging on to the PNC/APNU’s coat-tails.

But while the Opposition politicians continue to play chess with the lives of the Guyanese people, and derail the growth patterns of the country by starving the Government of vital funds, while continuing lawless actions in and out of Parliament, the Government is being true to its mandate of putting Guyana first, even conceding to some instances of Opposition blackmail where there is no imminent danger to the developmental confluences of the nation.

Nevertheless, Guyana’s growth trajectory, in recent years poised to lift the nation on an unprecedented upward developmental flight, has been severely constrained during three years of opposition gerrymandering, cognizance of which should be taken by the electorate when next elections are called. The Government, including the President, continues to plead to the Opposition to join in national developmental discussions; but they always renege on agreements, then grandstand on issues that impact the welfare of the nation, all of which could very easily be resolved if the Opposition really cared about the Guyanese people.

extracted from Guyanachronicle