I READ a letter penned by Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh and published on Feb 6th. As is customary, these two gentlemen continue to bash the Government and its officials, labelling them lazy and corrupt, and continue to give the impression that our country is a depressed state and no one is happy here. I would attempt to deal with these allegations one at a time; but first, let me remind you that I am not a Government spokesman, but, rather, a person who believes in telling it as it is. Let’s start with corruption.  Every day we are bombarded with talk of corruption among Government officials by media houses loyal or sympathetic to the opposition forces; yet, when called upon to present their evidence of corruption, they fail miserably to so do. Moreso, NCN hosted a series of Corruption debates in which APNU and the AFC participated, and yet again, they failed to point out one Government deal or contract in which corruption was evident. The opposition also failed to point out one Government official who acted in a corrupt manner in any of his or her dealings, whether as an agent of the Government or in his/her personal life. During this debate, the talk shifted from evidence ofcorruption to "Perceived Corruption".  As a matter of fact, the debate turned into offensive attacks on Government officials, which even included the President of the Republic and the former head of state, Bharat Jagdeo. One would recall that AFC Vice Chairman Moses Nagamootoo was silenced when he tried to lay blame on the Government for what happened to CLICO. After Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh had set the record straight by pointing out that the CLICO situation is a regional one and not that of the Guyana Government, Nagamootoo then turned his guns on the Head of State by saying "Look who we have for president today". This kind of behaviour by the oposition is nothing new, but I was indeed taken aback when I heard such utterance from Mr. Nagamootoo, who discussed with me his interest in working with President Donald Ramotar as vice president once the President agreed. As I was writing this piece, I was interrupted by news of a shootout in Prashad Nagar. Immediately my focus changed. I began to think about what would possess a person’s mind to turn to a life of crime.  Then came the blame game, and the conspiracy theorists-- of course, the opposition parties -- tried to lay the blame on the Government and the lack of opportunities for young people. I humbly submit that this Government has invested more in our young people than the failed PNC administration, which was booted out of office in 1992. In 2012, 221 young men and women graduated from the Kuru Kuru Training Centre, and another 66 from the Sophia Training Centre, with different technical skills vital to a developing country like ours. Many of these youths entered the workforce and are contributing to our country's development in all areas, including in the very lucrative constriction sector. Since the introduction of the "Youth Entrepreneurial Skills Training (YEST), more than 2000 young peoplehave been given a second chance at education, albeit technical education, which in turn empowered then to earn a living for their personal wellbeing. The Ministry of Labour's Board of Industrial Training (BIT) trained about 3762 young people from 2000 to 2009. In 2010, it completed training of 2304 persons from the National Training Project for Youth Empowerment alone. The latter project has been responsible for the training and certification at the semi skilled level of 2922 youths up to the first quarter of 2010. The Ministry of Home Affairs’ Citizens Security Program (CSP), through its Community Action Component (CAC), provides opportunities for hundreds of young people who were able to acquire skills to yet again be meaningfully employed. Also, part of the CAC's program is the development or rehabilitation of community centres and playgrounds. So, all in all, this Government continues to lay the foundation for our young to be gainfully empowered and employed. Of course, many of the aforementioned programs have targeted mainly at-risk youths who may have, for some reason or another, fallen out of the formal school system. By I agree with the opposition that some of our young people are operating in a state of hopelessness, and this is because they lack self-esteem and they continue to feed their minds with the opposition forces garbage propaganda. If you speak to a young person about the outlook for their future, depending on the answer, you can know what community they belong to. Case in point: talk to a young person from Buxton and a young person from Annandale and you would get a sense of what i am talking about. I believe if the opposition would only submit to telling its sympathizers the truth, then our young people can start to feel upbeat again. The fact is that Guyana is a much better place than it was when the PPP/C took office. Our country has moved from a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) to a developing country. Poverty is at its lowest level, and Guyanese are doing better in every aspect of their lives. However, there are those among us who are hell bent on creating confusion, so they employ their agents to create tension in our society. It is public knowledge that certain crimes committed in our communities have political connection. I call on the Opposition to work together with the Government to come up with more ways to make our country a safer place.