OPINION: President Ali – Throw out your “narratives of division”

Last Updated on Sunday, 7 January 2024, 11:29 by Denis Chabrol

By Dr Randy Persaud, Professor Emeritus

January 5, 2024, will be a day to remember in the history of Region 10. On this day, President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali delivered a landmark speech in Linden at the contract signing event for a new, four-lane bridge linking Mackenzi to Wismar. The existing one-way bridge has become inadequate. In 2020, the bridge facilitated 768,000 vehicular crossings. Three years later, and because of the massive economic transformation of Linden, Region 10, and Guyana, the traffic today has topped 1.5 million crossings!

The signing event was on the western bank of the Demerara River, at the foot of the old bridge. There, a sizeable and colorful audience not only listened to, and applauded the president, but also prodded him on as he delivered a compendium of stinging blows against those who sow “narratives of division” in this country. The president was in his finest political moments, waxing spiritual with Biblical Invocations, including Proverbs 24. Regional Chairman Deron Adams, who has in the past made unconscionably inaccurate accusations against the PPP was relentlessly, but jocularly targeted, with a barrage of invitations to work “with a heart that sees no barrier.”

President Ali was in a waggish mood, at times ‘hailing’ this and that brethren in the audience, all of whom responded with expressions of approval, with the universal I and I. But make no mistake, because the banter notwithstanding, the president zeroed in on the different records of the APNU-AFC and the PPPC. Below are some noteworthy comparisons.

• The APNU-AFC had planned a two-lane bridge at the same location for the cost of US $30 million. The PPPC is building a four-lane bridge for US $35 million, and this, despite the pressures of global inflation.
• Under the APNU-AFC one thousand bauxite workers lost their jobs. Most of those workers have been reemployed since the Ali administration took office. PPPC policies have resulted in a new US $120 million investment in the bauxite industry. During the APNU-AFC five years, investors in bauxite fled the country.
• While Region 10 residents are told by APNU-AFC operatives that economic support from the PPP-C administration is a mere handout, President Ali noted that 1573 persons in the area have accepted part-time jobs. When this was pointed out, the audience exploded in massive, sustained applause. You could hear a voice from the audience peeling away with Tell them! Tell them!
• One hundred small contractors from the Linden area have been brought on board since the PPPC took office in August 2020.
• The Call Center, which was fully functional with hundreds employed when the PPP-C left office in 2015, was shuttered by 2020. That Call Center (Midas BPO) is again open and Lindeners are again gainfully employed in this sector.
• Under the PPP-C (before 2015), the LEN and LEAF Program disbursed 797 loans for a total of GY $797 million. Between 2015 and 2020, under APNU-AFC, a whopping GY $330 million REDUCED the amount!
• Between 2015-2020 during the APNU_AFC, Region 10 received GY $ 1.7 billion in development investments. But in the three years of the PPP-C since August 2020, Region 10 has received GY $2.5 billion in investments.
• In education, the APNU-AFC spent GY $226 million in the Region; by contrast the PPP-C has invested GY $ 2 billion in a little over three years.
• In Housing and Water, APNU-AFC spent less than GY $ 1 billion; by contrast, the PPP-C has expended GY $ 4 billion in three years.
• In the area of Public Works, the record for APNU-AFC is heartbreakingly dismal. They spent not even a dollar on hinterland roads in five years, compared to the GY $2 billion spent by the PPPC in the Region. Urban roads were politically timed. President Ali pointed out that nothing was spent by APNU-AFC before the No-Confidence vote in 2016. As elections got closer to 2020, APNU-AFC GY $ 289 Million. Since the PPPC took office in 2020, it has spent GY $ 3 billion on urban roads in Region 10. Eighty-five percent of APNU-AFC roads in the region came after the No-Confidence vote!
• In the area of Human Services and Social Security, the APNU-AFC failed Region 10. They spent GY $80 million in five years. By comparison, the PPPC has spent GY $179 million since August 2020.
• In agriculture, the APNU-AFC spent GY $450 million in five years. Between August 2020 and today, the PPPC has invested GY $ 4 billion in Region 10 agriculture.
• In Culture, Youth, and Sports APNU-AFC spent 80% in three years compared to what the APNU-AFC spent in five.

The comparative data above demonstrate in a convincing fashion that the APNU-AFC failed the people of Region 10 and especially the residents of Linden during their five-year term. Public records have revealed that despite the dearth of development and resources allocated to Region 10 during the APNU-AFC, top party insiders, especially from the APNU, received large tracts of land. One individual who played a leading role in trying the rig the 2020 elections received over two hundred acres of prime land. Vice President Jagdeo has provided exhaustive details on these deals at his regular Thursday press conferences.

President Ali was in a magical political moment on January 5, 2024, in Linden. While the formal occasion was the signing of the contract for a new four-lane bridge, there is little doubt that Lindeners will for a long time remember this day. It was a day of reckoning, of setting the record straight, of deploying the Rod of Correction!

Dr Randy Persaud is Adviser on International Affairs, Office of the President, Guyana.