Dear Editor,
The PPP Government has developed a knack for embarrassing itself, and kicking the Guyanese people in the teeth, all at once. There is that budget allocation of $40 million for the Office of Commissioner of Information. If this wasn’t such a serious matter, it would be funny, with gales of laughter following. What is that $40 million in the 2026 budget for, silence? A soundproof tower with a high fence and barbwire as advance guards? Where no sound penetrates and not one decibel manages to sneak out? Imagine paying many millions for a TV commercial, only to get a screen full of snow and the comforts of white noise.
Guyana is a sad country; so sick that the full weight of its predicament is unknown. There is the people Oil Fund (the impressive sounding Natural Resource Fund), the Procurement Commission, the Integrity Commission, the Ethnic Relations Commission, and they all have one common connecting thread. Who is not out to lunch is out to sea! Who is not in their cups, is all for the Cup, that red one! See no evil. Sense no evil. Share no evil.
What is the use, how much benefit, to Guyanese from these multi-million-dollar commissions, which keeps getting refunded year after year, and are like homes that have lost a loved one, the day after the funeral? Little by way of movement. The PPP Governmentt has money to burn on pink elephants, green alligators, and yellow snow leopards.
This commission, that one around the corner, and there is still that Access to Information Office straight up the road that should be a national monument, such a horror story it has become. An inspired thought that has its merits just came. The plenipotentiaries for the unfinished ABCE alphabet could have had the good graces and corresponding energies to say a few words to make the Leader of the Opposition quagmire melt away.
If for that, and for a sanctioned and charged individual at that, then they are sure to have some value in the tussle to get the access to information office bouncing around like a spring chicken. The ABCE ambassadors and high commissioners (and CARICOM) can light a fire (figuratively speaking) under the president, and give him the inspiration to instruct the responsible parties to cease and desist with all the nonsense, and start with a fresh page and fresh message.
It takes a special kind of government to squander $40 million so casually, then extend that dubious financial arrangement for half of a decade. What was it that the man with the moneybag had said during his presentation, not some cobbled together poem titled “Putting People First?” It is obvious that he knows which people. For there he was: $40 million for doing nothing, $40 million for maintaining a stiff upper lip, and for that $40 million, the added bonus of a hissing, spitting, snarling reaction when the moon is full.