The government and the Opposition are opposite poles

April 6, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under Features/Columnists, My Column, Source

When a leader says one thing the people listen. After all he is leader and he knows best. But more often than not, when a leader says one thing the people he leads see something else. The United States is a classic example, and for the right of the people to disagree with their leaders the world has coined a term, democracy.

Barack Obama said many things. One of them was that he would close down the base in Cuba that is at present home to many prisoners said to have been involved in planning attacks against the United States. Some have not agreed, so Guantanamo is still operational.

Obama more recently came up with a medical plan that would see people who struggle to secure medical insurance actually get a plan. Needless to say, there was widespread objection to the point that it is a miracle that the plan actually got off the ground.

In Guyana we have had a share of our leaders saying one thing but the reality was actually something else. Forbes Burnham came up with the idea that over three years he would give a staggered pay hike. For two years he kept his promise, then he balked. His people never got the $11 per day as he had proclaimed. He also promised hydroelectricity and actually began a pursuit of this dream which would have seen an end to the continued dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Today, we have a leader in Donald Ramotar. Because of his minority government he has pledged to work with the opposition for the development of Guyana. However this is easier said than done. He has had problems passing his budgets because the opposition has challenged aspects of those budgets.

He tried to establish a tri-partite body that would meet regularly to hammer out problems. For some reason that committee never functioned and there have been accusations hurled across the divide. The opposition contends that the talk about meeting is mere faÇade.

The government said that the opposition was recalcitrant, that its members simply found excuses for not meeting. It also accused the opposition of being petulant, like a child who has a child taken away from it.

Both sides are right. There are those in the government who firmly believe that they are in power and that they do not have to take orders from anyone. For example, there was the drive to make the Amaila Falls the source of Guyana’s hydroelectric power . The government touted a lot of money and the opposition balked.

The government opted to take some of the opposition members along the road to the falls and won their admiration. However, there were questions and the government said that it was answering them. The opposition doubted this. In the end the project ground to a halt.

It was the same with the specialty hospital and the expansion of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport. President Ramotar instructed his people to release all information, but this created even more problems because they prompted even more questions. Answers were not forthcoming.

The government said that the opposition refused to even try to understand. I see this situation replicated so many times that I wonder whether I would ever see a unified government. There is simply too much distrust.

And this brings me to the present budget debate. Finance Minister Ashni Singh produced the set of figures and in the process exposed many things. For example, the figures show that we have spent so much more on the Hope Canal than we said we did. The extra money came from the very National Assembly that controls the release of funds. Strange but true, the opposition did not even study what they were voting for.

If asked, Donald Ramotar would say that he leaves his officers to do what they are employed to do, that he does not get into details. The result is one group of people doing what they think is the best for themselves and the President saying what he thinks is the right thing to the opposition.
He has said nothing about the outburst by his Education Minister Priya Manickchand but then again, he would argue that he is not a parliamentarian and that there are people in parliament who would deal with whatever happens there.

For her part, Priya, a lawyer, swore by the principle of innocent until proven guilty. In the National Assembly she ignored that mantra. She labeled people even before they are tried.

But things come back to Donald Ramotar. For example, the opposition is serious about the state-owned television and radio stations serving the nation.  However the radio and television facilities seem more inclined to serve the government. The opposition says that it cannot vote money to be discriminated against.

It sees that it does not command a favourable space in the state-owned newspaper. It is the same with the radio and television stations. But the government says that the money is needed for the national good.  Obviously the opposition does not feature in the national good.

But that is democracy and the government and the opposition continue to be hostile to each other.