DEAR EDITOR,
Clement Rohee, General Secretary, of the PPPC in one of his media briefings had said that when his party entered parliament for the budget debate their engagement would be unprecedented. This declaration created great expectations in the country, particularly among his party’s supporters who were made to expect,” fire and brimstone” by the party as it engaged the APNU/AFC government in the budget debate.
We were also told by another leading PPPC member, Gail Teixeira, that when the former President, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo addressed the National Assembly on economic matters, the government side would get diarrhea.
Based on these public pronouncements it was not surprising that at the completion of the budget debate many PPPC supporters were deeply disappointed by the inability of their party to deliver on its much vaunted promise to discredit and destroy the government’s budget.
The much anticipated PPPC “Big Bang” did not materialize, instead the nation was told very early in the PPPC’s presentation that the budget contained many ideas of the last PPPC regime, and the opposition party will support these measures.
Ironically, it is this admission, which was based on fact or fantasy, which militated against the opposition, thereby derailing the PPPC‘s thunder in the process. It became an impossible task for the PPPC to reconcile the claim that major parts of the budget were their ideas, and at the same time describe the budget as ineffective and lacking answers to address the pressing challenges facing the economy and country.
It was clear that the PPPC during the debate was a victim of its own logic, and as a result, found itself caught in the dilemma of not being able (to quote a popular Guyanese saying) to have cake and bake at the same time. Once they had committed publicly to their stated position of claiming major parts of the budget as originating from them, they ultimately shot themselves in the behind and blunted the cutting edges of their attacks. The task of being both critical and praiseworthy proved too difficult a burden for them to bear, hence their wishy-washy performance during the debate.
Finally, I believe the performance of the Leader of the Opposition was at best, shambolic. The final nail in the coffin of his and the PPPC’s miserable display in the budget debate occurred at the end of Mr. Jagdeo’s presentation when he and his team walked out of the Assembly, thereby giving the impression that he was like the proverbial coward – willing to throw a few punches then running away from the fight. The big bad PPPC leader’s performance in the parliament turned out to be a damp squib that burnt itself out rather than exploded with the promised tremendous bang.
Tacuma Ogunseye