Had there been a preparation for the Guyana Budget Debate that included basic fundamentals like a numerical analysis of what the previous budget promised- a goal log of its accomplishments, for starters- the Opposition would have been ready to counter the PPP’s claims of a 50% fall in unemployment…is our opinion.
We’re still unsure of the yardstick used to determine this metric.
Guyana is a member of the UN’s International Labor Organization- UN ILO– founded to promote Social Justice and Labor Rights. Two of its founding members are Britain and America.
The country receives assistance from both Britain and America, for ‘Better Work’ Initiatives and Nondiscriminatory Employment Practices. There is an obligation, therefore, to provide records to show, at a minimum, program compliance.
And there’s an explicit reason why quarterly and monthly reports for Labour statistics are reported by race by these founding members, who are primary donors to Guyana’s Better Labor Practices.
We consulted the Guyana Labour Force Survey Report, the holy grail for all things employment numbers. The most current on line, apparently, is dated 2024 and seems to follow the stale-dated pattern that is statistics reporting in Guyana, a la Census Data.
What’s clear, though not shocking, is the reporting pattern.
Data is aggregated, not sub categorized as exemplified by the countries that offer guidance and material assistance, for this level of breakdown. And this was one of the primary aims of UNILO, in its Social Justice/Labor Rights objectives…goals that are specific, measurable, time bound.
Men, Women, Rural, Urban.
The generic labeling, though lazy, is more insidious than inadequate effort.
It’s a good way to obscure discriminatory practices – if occurring – by replacing specific, objective, and potentially damning information with vague, neutral-sounding and geographic terminology.
This challenges lots of economic data and claims of growth. People are a key calculus for Gross Domestic Product so accurate subcategories are essential for accurate numbers.
This would query the 50% unemployment boasted. What’s that breakdown…Men, Women, Age Group, Geography, Race? Who is most unemployed?
These are essential data points if economic prosperity and a ‘One – Guyana’ initiative are to be more than political talking points and airy slogans for rallies that attract SOME Guyana.
And there are somethings that should have been challenged, in the Budget Debate, because they make absolutely no sense.
For the Finance Minister to blame APNU for poverty statistics, after a mere five year tenure and its previous 23 years in Opposition, was his confidence that preparation would not have been his challenger.
Poverty and any of the economic markers of society would have as a start date, point of inheritance, then the depth that the destruction has to be dug out from.
Mr. Finance knew he would never have received that level of deductive argument, not even from APNU, whose roots are anchored in the diligence of the PNC.
Recently, and more particularly this 2026, these debates have devolved to bar room brawls without visible liquor.
The vituperation and carefully crafted names for opponents cater more to social media than socioeconomic purpose. Everybody is an entertainer with bellowing decibels but hollow solutions. Signs of the times, some say, but society is comprised of people and standards that guide and oft-times dictate behaviors.
There are two vital things people seem not to know. The purpose of politics is for managing their affairs. Every politician appointed to the political apparatus has a fiduciary responsibility to work for the greater good of every citizen because the practice of politics is commissioned by a national Constitution.
There was a time when political Party meetings were held with scheduled frequency. There were teaching sessions. Retail politicians were charged with delivering the mechanics of operations in simple language, not profanity and glib aspersions.
It was this informational detail that helped Constituents understand what was the purpose of the Party, its commitment to nation and its role in helping them all reap the benefits of the nation’s resources.
We remember when there was no TV and there were classes like Civics and Social Studies that required listening to the radio broadcast of the Budget Debate, for written homework assignment.
They were not quiet but there was an eloquence that bestowed the reverence and dignity that bore respect for the supreme nature of this law-making body.
Now, the National Assembly is a contest of high decibels and low graces; a finger-wagging performance aimed only at delivering the most memorable insult.
We remember when that was the conduct of APNU Leader, Norton, whose contributions were a deft combination of noise and diatribe. The historic PNC is poorer for his tenure now, having suffered a demeaning defeat and demoting displacement.
Thunder is impressive but lightening does the work… a saying that is very applicable here.
This brings us back to the PNC and the fact that its fortunes will remain marred by damaged reputation and misguidance, if leadership is not changed.
From all accounts, Norton remains squatting at the helm like Dictator Idi Amin; revolving through self-assigned titles, as if each grants a new lease that freezes him in place.
It’s not about the visual, though things have a way of looking like each other and that he may well get to Idi’s most famous title, “Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea”.
It’s about deliberately holding the Party hostage. And we say deliberately because he set the standard by calling on Desmond Hoyte to resign when he lost 5 seats. Norton, lost 10 and a coalition with AFC that had brought 9 seats, previously.
As the Party Watchman, he knew where all the porous points were. Then he breached every policy and constitutional loophole he knew had been unrevised or updated for decades– the ones that made him interchangeably watchman and thief– with access to poach authority, then escape through the very window that gave him access to the authority.
And now it’s about the cumulative damage his presence continues to inflict on the Party.
He has refused the customary ‘autopsy’ after loss, any deep dive analysis into reparative restructuring, is the complaint. We don’t want to see the fine or blue print, just the post mortem conclusion.
When the sentiment implies ‘laissez faire/ high autonomy‘ as the job model and the Budget performance testifies to the model, there is need, not only for alarm but an urgency to salvage what’s left of the PNC.
There is, irrefutably, its national and historic import, as recorded in the UK Hansard and selection by England to receive the scrolls of Independence by its Colonialists.
But, it is its founding ideology which was, crafted to appeal to those automatically relegated to the lower rounds by societal construct, which is what makes it the inheritance of the population brought to Guyana against its will.
And this is why it should not be abandoned or left up to schemes , in the charge of others who do not see this journey and destination for this specific population.
Its’ been about 150 days since Norton demonstrated that he lacked a plan – flimsy or substantive -when he delivered his final jaw grinder on election eve…having made negligible, if any, inroads to Party’s nontraditional or cross-over voters.
If he were truly a proponent of ‘resign in the face of failure‘, he would have done so already.
And because he’s been treated as some pressure valve – hard to picture prima donna, so we’ll go with valve – he’s using perceived fear- because of a lack of public campaign/calls for his immediate resignation- to thumb his nose, cycle through portfolios, weaponize the unrepaired Party loopholes, as the Party teeters on the brink of oblivion.
The, Party, now has to be the purpose.
The silent warriors have to come out of the shadows and take a bold stand to save what they know will disenfranchise many and erase their chances at political participation, through an ideology tailored to combat what society tends to impose.
Look.
It’s hard to fight indignity with class.
The Party has to be recaptured. And this has to be done by less diplomatic overtures and attempts at soft persuasion.
The more useful way would be public calls which won’t harm the Party more than Norton’s presence and the possibility of not just replacement but displacement by another Party in 5 years.
This new Parliament came with old ailments. The Budget Debate which was neither budget nor debate, came with the Norton seal of the previous five years- performative and unsubstantial. And we say unsubstantial because nothing, gauging the points delivered as rebuttal, was anchored in any mathematical fact, or was any statistic used for inference evaluated within a testable range. We say this because there were no citations. None.
The notion that Budget Debate is a narrative with scarce and scant reference to specific data points, with insufficient numerical counter proposals, would be disappointing if it weren’t such a betrayal of those who elected these politicians to stand in the gap for them.
And PNC restoration is not the only mission here.
The whole tenor of the Assembly is reliant on spectacle; like a knock -off Roman Coliseum treat, too cheap to afford some lions.
It’s a reflection on how incivility has become currency and the electorate, starved of knowledge of a Party’s purpose beyond racial division and enmity, unwittingly endorses the mayhem that robs them of quality participation in the political arena.
The restoration of order in the National Assembly would be a civic enhancement for practice of national Politics.
That would be just as vital, just as game changing, as the recapturing of the PNC from its abductor and readying it to function at the level it was conceived for, in an environment for which it was crafted but is now estranged from because leadership sits at odds with its conception.