…PNC dinosaurs
There was, this week, another anniversary than the Dec 21 NCM that tolled the PNC’s ejection from office – the 18th anniversary of former President and PNC leader Desmond Hoyte’s passing, on Dec 22, 2002. The former was received with deathly silence by the PNC, while the latter brought out David Granger from his (latest) lengthy hibernation to Seven Ponds, where Hoyte is interred.
Rather than telling it like it is on the life on Hoyte, Granger – as is his wont – used the occasion to sanctimoniously justify his illegitimate hold on the PNC leadership. Trying to justify his literal “helicoptering” to the position by Robert Corbin, Granger claimed the latter was following Burnham who’d brought in Hoyte as a new face.
“Forbes Burnham saw the need for change after the first term in office ended with the 1968 General Elections and Guyana prepared to embark on a course to become a republic. The majority of ministers from the original cohort changed.”
This, of course, is a complete crock. Hoyte had been brought into the Elections Commission in 1967 to oversee the rigging of the 1968 elections! And Burnham dumped most of the former Ministers since he wanted veterans like Carter and Kendall, with followings, out of the way – and the UF Ministers had resigned in protest in any case!
Granger’s next bit of self-serving revisionism was to claim it was “change” that made Burnham choose Hoyte as Prime Minister after Reid left in 1984. Really? It wasn’t “change”, but fear that his assumed successor Hamilton Green had grown too big for his britches!!
But unlike Corbin, who plucked Granger from obscurity outside the party hierarchy, Hoyte – as even Granger conceded – held a wide number of portfolios in Government between 1968 and 1984. But what Granger didn’t say was that after Hoyte rigged the 1985 elections even bigger than Burnham, he pointedly passed over Granger to head the army! Instead, he chose Joe Singh who was Granger’s junior – and from the lowly Guyana National Service to boot!! The shame!! Hoyte didn’t just jettison Burnham’s failed socialism, but also all the Burnhamites – of which Granger was a card-carrying member – in all sections of the Government and state.
In his peroration, Granger unctuously intoned: “Change is as necessary a part of politics as it is of life. Those who do not change become dinosaurs, irrelevant and eventually extinct. Change is as necessary a part of politics as it is of life. If we do not adapt to new circumstance, new challenges and new responsibilities, we cannot survive, much less overcome.”
Yet Granger refused to change the PNC leaders’ compulsion to rig and treat their party as their personal fiefdom.
As a dinosaur, he must go!
…in Public Infrastructure
Surely, dear reader, you know the old saw as to what constitutes “news”: “if a dog bites a man, that’s not news, but if a MAN bites a dog, THAT’s news, baby!” Well, the report that Minister of Public Infrastructure Juan Edghill has forced the Chinese contractor to agree to spend an additional US$9million to get some of what had been originally contracted for at the CJIA has gotta be BIG NEWS!!
Compare this to the PNC and their Public Infrastructure man James Patterson, who whined that the Contractor just wouldn’t listen to him – even as they spent an additional US$12M over the US$138M the PPP contracted to spend in 2011. When the PPP returned into the saddle in August, not only did Edhill read the Riot Act to the Contractor – but President Ali personally took a trip to the airport and drew a line in the sand.
And as we can see…the contractor had to fall into line. Why?
The PPP hadn’t received “something” under the table!
…and COVID-19
Even if we hadn’t done basic biology in high school, we should know viruses mutate, since we’re told every year there’s a “new strain” of the flu virus.
So, expect more mutations than the new British strain.
