OPINION: Abuse of free press in Guyana has become intolerable

Last Updated on Wednesday, 30 October 2024, 8:41 by Denis Chabrol

By Dr Randy Persaud, Professor Emeritus, American University

A free press is one of the main foundations of a democratic society. Those who don’t have it, long for it. Many have died for it. Yet, some who make a living through the institution of press freedom here in Guyana, have chosen to abuse it with a vengeance.

The abuse in not only politically and culturally weaponized, but also of the vilest ad hominem sort. The names of decent men, such as Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, are dragged into spaces at odds with their otherwise stellar reputation for public service to this nation, and to the international community.

Columnist GHK Lall has become the poster child for this abuse of press freedom. The abuse is to be found in his vituperative attacks against the PPP administration of President Ali, and worse yet, in the mindless character assassination of Jagdeo’s name.

Let me be clear on the charge here. Lall never, I repeat never writes an informed critique of the PPP, or of Jagdeo.’s record in office either as president or vice-president. You will never find a careful, data-driven analysis of a policies, say in housing, education, health, or national security. No text, such as the multi-volume National Development Strategy, (NDS), or the internationally acclaimed Low Carbon Development Strategy, (LCDS), is ever engaged. One wonders if this fella even knows that Jagdeo was the principal intellectual force behind the NDS and the LCDS.

In the meantime, the Guyana Press Association remains silent, oblivious, hemmed in and compartmentalized by its ideology of selective activism.

This guy Lall has the audacity to decry the PPP one-seat majority in the National Assembly. In his poetry, “[a]ll issues begin, end there, are resolved there” (KN 10/29/2024). Let us compare the one seat majority that the APNU-AFC had, with the current situation with the PPP under President Ali, Vice President Jagdeo, and Prime Minister Phillips.

GHK Lall’s favored one-seat majority party engaged in a litany of abuses including but not limited to (1) it took Lall’s APNU-AFC 437 days to have an election after the no confidence vote on December 21, 2018; (2) APNU-AFC signed a lop-sided contract with the oil companies and then have people like GHK Lall blame others (3) the APNU-AFC levied over 200 taxes on Guyanese businesses and families; (4) the APNU-AFC took away the Because We Care Grant from school children, and a number of benefits for the elderly and others; and (5) Lall’s APNU-AFC made an attempt in broad-daylight to steal the elections of 2020.

Let us compare that to what the PPPC has done with its majority since August 2020 – (1) the PPP made substantial adjustments to the lop-sided contract through the Local Content Act of 2021; (2) the gas to energy project was begun despite massive attacks from GHK Lall and his fellow development deniers; (3) most of the 50,000 house lots promised in the PPP’s Manifesto have been delivered; (4) twelve new hospitals are under construction; (5) the Demerara River Bridge in on schedule; (6) the Schoonord-Crane by-pass and several other major highways are either completed or nearing completion; (7) UG will be free as of January 2025; (8) tolls on the Demerara River Bridge, Berbice River Bridge, and Wismar-McKenzie Bridge will no longer exist; (8) 27,000 students are on GOAL scholarships; (9) our debt to GDP ratio is at an all-time low; (10) workers’ wages have risen sharply facilitating the most dramatic rise in upward social mobility in the country’s history; (11) every Guyanese adult at home and abroad (while in Guyana) is entitled to a cash grant of $100,000; (12) electricity price to end users will be cut by half from next year; (13) the PPP won the resounding affirmation of the electorate at the ‘mid-term’ local government elections in 2023. They did so without the customary electoral fraud tactics of the party supported by GHK Lall.

The point should be clear. While Mohamed Irfaan Ali, Bharrat Jagdeo and Mark Phillips are busy building a country for this generation and others to follow, we have a half-baked pseudo-intellectual like GHK Lall, who makes a living by viciously attacking progress, upward social mobility, ethnic reconciliation, and the consolidation of Guyana’s new found leadership in the Caribbean and beyond.

I made this argument and I will make it again. GHK Lall attacks Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo because those attacks invariably get him attention he won’t otherwise receive. The fact that his campaign of character assassination has so far failed, however, has pushed Lall into an uncontrolled frenzy. The abuse of the free press in Guyana has become intolerable, and the Guyana Press Association must, for once, fulfill its obligation and call a bully a bully.

Dr. Randy Persaud, Office of the President