Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira is calling out the APNU+AFC Coalition Government for what she deems as an evolving pattern of involvement of selected Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) based on Government’s need for “window dressing and like mindedness.”
According to her the exclusive non-participatory form of Government is being camouflaged by the Government’s policy of social cohesion.
She said the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) following its Congress agreed that the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) diplomatic corps would be called upon in relation to the Coalition’s social cohesion policy and other programmes being financed by UNDP.
Teixeira said “Social Cohesion like I said is a camouflage for the selection of only those they feel are safe, politically correct according to them to be able to sit at their table, anybody else with different views are excluded.”
Teixeira pointed to a recently released Transparency Institute Guyana Inc (TIGI) report which cites examples of accountability failures, cover ups, break down of procurement laws and other flaws which vindicate the PPP’s position regarding the Government.
“The Government shrouds itself in secrecy, they’re lack of visibility is part of their mantle of ensuring they protect themselves from being exposed to the views of other people…this trend we are seeing of lack of transparency and accountability has now evolved in the way the Government is managed as well as in the legislature. Nothing would be revealed unless they are caught, exposed and then information is extracted, almost like a tooth being pulled in snippets,” she noted.
According to the Opposition Chief Whip, over the 19 months of the Government’s rule, some 26 scandals were documented with numbers 27 and 28 emerging.
This alone, Teixeira believes is an indictment of the Government and the levels of corruption and abuse of power it will “stoop to to satiate themselves and their electoral financiers and cronies.”
Given all that has been said, she is echoing a call for united movement of all including civil society, trade unions, women’s organizations to halt the further entrenchment of an authoritarian, undemocratic regime.
