Harmon chides PPP for being "blind" to Government's agenda

The opposition People’s Progressive Party was on Thursday called out as being willfully blind to the government’s vision by State Minister Joseph Harmon, who used his presentation in the ongoing budget debates to defend the government’s green state agenda.

Harmon said the government had spent the last four days clarifying his vision but notwithstanding its efforts, the PPP remains blinded.

“The bush is cleared and the structures are up but they [PPP MPs] still don’t see a house,” Harmon told the National Assembly during his presentation on Thursday.

He said the government’s vision is laid bare and is unfolding before the eyes of the PPP Parliamentarians and reasoned that there is a willful move to ignore it.

Harmon recalled that all subject Ministers whose budget debate presentations preceded him outlined and delivered the vision for their sectors and questioned what else the PPP wanted.

Harmon said foreigners are able to see the government’s vision which includes the development of a green state knocked the opposition for not embracing the government’s green state strategy.

“If all of these world leaders can see that, what is wrong with us… why can’t we recognize that the world is seeing us as the place for the future and we are in this House fighting? What is really happening to us.”

He cautioned the opposition against its denial in the House of Guyana’s potential and the consequent international image that is derived from the collective presentations of all MPs.

Turning his attention to the agreement with Norway, Harmon said there is a broader strategy which now includes persons living on the coast and not just living in the hinterland addresses the bridging of a gap that currently exists.

“I can assure you that our agreement with the Kingdom of Norway is alive and well… only this morning we had an acknowledgment that Norway would release funding for major projects.”

He said the Norwegian government has requested documents in a bid for clarification which has already been presented. Those documents were the government’s energy roadmap and the green agenda.

“I don’t know what you are talking about you don’t see a vision when it is right there before your eyes.”

He said the green state development strategy remains a work in progress with ongoing education taking place with school-age children to help them understand.

“When you go home your children will educate you as to what the green state agenda is… that it is not about a color, it is about a way of life,” Harmon told opposition MPs.

He assured the opposition also that the government did not throw away its Low Carbon Development Strategy but built on it with the green state agenda.