President ought to have shown better judgement in appointment of Slowe commission of inquiry

A couple of days after Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan said some kind words to the media about Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum, the Prime Minister-controlled, state-owned Guyana Chronicle sought to discredit the Crime Chief. It did so by serialising extracts pulled from the confidential report to President Granger by his hand-picked Mr. Paul Slowe to carry out a one-man Commission of Inquiry (COI). Only the President, those very close to him, and Mr. Slowe himself would know the source of the leak. But make no mistake, if Prime Minister Nagamootoo wanted to shut down the drip, drip series by the Guyana Chronicle, all he needed to do was to pass on the instruction through one of his many mouthpieces.

With the extensive but selective disclosure by the State media, it would be irrational for the President to delay the tabling of the report in the National Assembly, and releasing it to the public. What the public will learn, and which explains why the Chronicle was so selective, is that Slowe himself found the allegation of a plot by an opportunistic and possibly unhinged complainant “unsubstantiated and therefore tenuous”. Mind you, these are the exact words used by Police Legal Adviser Justice Claudette Singh in her first note to the Police and repeated at the Commission of Inquiry, and by Blanhum at the COI. As the Americans would say, there was simply nothing there. Continue reading “President ought to have shown better judgement in appointment of Slowe commission of inquiry”