The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) extends best wishes to our Guyanese brothers and sisters both at home and in the Diaspora, for a peaceful, prosperous and productive 2020.
Over the past year, the Guyanese people have witnessed the shameless desperation of a government resorting to every legal and arithmetic trick at their disposal to frustrate the Constitution of Guyana, hold on to political power illegally, and avoid facing the Guyanese people in an election that is now long overdue. Happily, by the end of 2019, their desperate attempts have finally been exhausted, and they have been left with no choice but to name a date on which the Guyanese people will be given a chance to elect a government of their choice.
The dawn of 2020 is also an occasion for guarded optimism in our country. We start this year as the world’s newest oil producing nation. In order for the benefits of this development to be enjoyed by all of the Guyanese people, the gross mismanagement of the sector by the incumbent APNU/AFC government will need to be remedied. Their sad legacy in the sector comprises abject failure to put in place an effective regulatory framework and local content policy, as well as badly negotiated contracts that do not serve the national interest.
The PPP’s commitment to the Guyanese people for 2020 and beyond is to bring responsible economic management not just to the oil and gas sector, but also to all of the traditional and other new and emerging sectors of our economy. By ensuring a truly diversified and robust economy, Guyana will soon be joining the fold of prosperous nations of the world and, with good government, every single Guyanese person will benefit from this prosperity.
For this promise to be realized, the Guyanese people will be required to make an important choice in March 2020. The incumbent government continues to engage in shallow sloganeering, promising a “decade of development”. The emptiness of this promise is best illustrated by their abject failure to deliver on that other shallow slogan that they have been parroting for the past five years, as “the good life” is yet to be enjoyed by anybody but themselves and their close cronies.
On the eve of this historic year, we in the PPP invite all of Guyana to join hands in the collective task of rebuilding Guyana from the destruction and disunity sowed over the past five years, and to resoundingly reject the APNU/AFC’s traditional tactic of trying to divide our people along ethnic lines, and forever consign this destructive political behavior to the dustbins of history.
May 2020 be a year in which the highest standards of democratic norms are observed including through the conduct of free, fair, and peaceful elections, in which good governance and responsible economic management are restored to our country, and in which the march to a prosperous Guyana proceeds apace.
Happy New Year!
People’s Progressive Party
December 31st, 2019
