Opinion

by Retired Read Admiral  Gary Best, LLB; LEC; PhD. President Ali needs to roll back on domination and control, take command of his government and order it to sit down with the GTU and negotiate a ‘real’ increase in salaries for the nation’s Teachers. We have the money in the budget! According to Jagdeo, “…we’ve established already that the strike ...

by GHK Lall Editorials have been slammed.  Letter writers and columnists lambasted, often slandered.  Now, it is the turn of a song.  Singing a simple song of sixpence is now found to be offensive by the PPP Government.  To be accurate, it is 6.5%, but worth all of sixpence, for its lasting effects.  If a mighty national government could be ...

By Dr. Randy Persaud, Professor Emeritus Let me begin by defining authoritarianism in general, and then its form in Guyana. Authoritarianism normally refers to those social forces and political forces that have a history of anti-democratic conduct, and who practice their politics by cultivating divisiveness. More often than not, authoritarian parties are prepared to break the law, rely on inflammatory ...

by GHK Lall Democracy is one strange animal, an unending fascination, to be sure.  Perhaps, it is the understanding and practices of democracy in Guyana that are strange, in that they are unique to here.  Many are those who speak of its lofty ideals, its vaunted values.  In harmonious times, those have no opponents.  It is when circumstances are crushing ...

By Dr Randy Persaud, Professor Emeritus I once was assigned the unbelievably fortunate task of accompanying Ngugi Wa Thiong΄o around American University (Washington DC), where I was a faculty member. I took the opportunity to ask him a simple question – how do you go about writing? He told me he had asked VS Naipaul the same question years back, ...

by GHK Lall Exxon Guyana is on the move.  Westward, ho, and it is to Essequibo (“ExxonMobil to search for oil offshore Essequibo Region”, Demerara Waves, February 06, 2024).  It was Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela who started the trash talking, and the warlike bellowing.  Well, it is not who starts a fight, but who finishes it.  Say hello to Exxon ...

by Retired Read Admiral  Gary Best, LLB; LEC; PhD. So much chatter in the budget about taking care of the Guyanese family, yet it challenges the protection of the earned oil revenues. It is irrefutable that independent management of Natural Resource Funds (NRFs) is the best practice. Therefore, the Guyana NRF requires standard rules of accountability throughout and not political ...

By Dr Randy Persaud, Professor Economics Dr. Gary Best is the new intellectual voice of the languishing APNU-AFC. This is not good, because this same Dr. Best, to the best of my knowledge, has never published a refereed paper on economic development, and certainly not on macro-economics. If he has, he should share it. The closest the new economic guru ...

by Retired Read Admiral  Gary Best, LLB; LEC; PhD. According to VP Jagdeo, “richer people can afford private health care and private education.” He was also excited to tell the Guyanese family that “…the services that are now produced in the private sector that you have to pay for, CT scan, ultrasound etc, … if you can get these in ...

by Retired Read Admiral  Gary Best, LLB; LEC; PhD. The Jagdeo 2024 budget is a failure! A failure in people development – a fundamental obligation of any government, a failure in preserving the human dignity of the Guyanese family, a failure in human care. Just look at the abject working condition of our public servants and teachers, where their salaries ...