Category: Letters to the editor

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The PPP/C needs to rein in Jagdeo

Whatever may be the motive underlying the campaign style of former President Bharrat Jagdeo, there is widespread agreement that the rhetoric, invectives and undisguised race-baiting in all his speeches bode ill for the country.

It is true that many of the PPP/C’s more extreme, grass root supporters admire Jagdeo’s aggressive style, targeting the APNU’s African-Guyanese leaders and their supporters. But APNU too has persons with extreme views and sentiments, and who consider Jagdeo’s message grave provocation. At some point their patience and tolerance could snap. This country has made much progress in relations between the two main race groups following 1997. But that improvement must not be taken for granted and there is no doubt in the minds of more sober persons that Jagdeo’s conduct and his speeches are undermining that progress.

On March 8 at Babu John, Corentyne, Jagdeo’s target was the PNCR and its leaders in “African villages”. Jagdeo told his audience then that on elections day November 28, 2011, those persons went around the African villages beating drums and calling on residents to go out and vote to throw out `coolie people’.

Despite the grave concerns expressed about that speech from no less than the Media Monitoring Unit of GECOM, Jagdeo daringly and defiantly raised the level of vitriol at the PPP/C Albion rally on April 19, predicting that if the elections are won by the opposition, the ex-military officers in the APNU+AFC leadership would link up with the [serving] Military and go to the homes of mainly Indian audience and start kicking the doors down. The message was clear: African-Guyanese are lawless, dangerous, to be feared and not to be trusted with the reins of government.

Retired Rear Admiral Best who had earlier announced his support for the opposition coalition sought to defend his former colleagues and the serving men and women of the Army. Jagdeo then pounced on Best, questioning his integrity and demanding that Best explain the source of his wealth.

Had these come up in a less tense environment or time, Jagdeo’s call would appear ludicrous. If there is any explanation to be done for source of wealth, then surely it is by Jagdeo. After all, Best is older than Jagdeo, has worked and saved for much longer than Jagdeo, bought a house lot that is one-seventh the size of Jagdeo’s, and built a house that is a fraction the size of Jagdeo’s, with none of the grandeur.

Jagdeo it seems considers that he as a former Commander-in-Chief has the right to freedom of expression and association with the PPP/C but that his former subordinate Best has none. The truth is, and his attorney Bernard De Santos, SC might wish to confirm this and advise him, the kind of speech Jagdeo is making is not protected under Article 146 of the Constitution.

There is no question that the attack on Best by Jagdeo has caused some serious reflection at the level of officers and ranks in the Defence Force.

The PPP/C with a lacklustre campaign headed by the uninspiring Ramotar-Harper pair decided to contract out its elections campaign to Jagdeo, a man who for a long time has enjoyed and abused constitutional immunity. Even if Jagdeo’s strategy were to work in the short run, it is dangerous in the longer term. The PPP/C needs to rein him in. If it does not, then it will not escape responsibility for the consequences of Jagdeo’s race and hate speeches.

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Conspiracy to conceal mandatory public information

There seems mischief afoot and a conspiracy involving Ms. Azeena Baksh, Registrar of Companies, the Berbice Bridge Company Inc. (BBCI) and Dr. Ashni Singh, Minister of Finance to conceal information from the public about the Bridge Company. One year after the NIS had invested nearly one billion in preference shares in BBCI, the company wrote the NIS telling its General Manager that it would not be receiving any dividends for 2014 because “the company had not made any profits”.

One of the regulatory controls of companies is disclosure to the public, mainly through an annual return. The problem is that BBCI has not filed any returns with the Registry since 2011 and has resisted every attempt to have it comply. The reason has become clearer over the past month with the Minister of Finance giving the company cover NOT to file for some time yet, even though he has no such power under the law. Even if the Minister had such power, the company had not met the conditions set out in the Companies Act for any extension of the filing date.
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The lists are replete with persons who hold citizenship in other countries

Introduction to third party letter
I have been asked by Mr. Rafiq Khan the writer of this letter who is also an attorney-at-law whether I would accommodate the corrected version of his letter. I have agreed to do so in the interest of wider information to the public on a matter which I have previously addressed both privately to GECOM and in the press.

The upcoming general and regional elections are perhaps the most important elections since those of 1992 and every citizen has a right and a duty to vote for the list of his or her choice.

Yet I regret that I will not be exercising that right or duty come May 11, 2015. My reason has nothing to do with the ability or inability of any of the contestants to properly govern the country.

My reason is based purely on a matter of principle as I perceive it. I refuse to be an accomplice to or complicit in the perpetuation of what I regard as a constitutional illegality on this country. Some of your letter writers have already alluded to it, but it does not seem to have gained the traction that it deserves. The reason, I believe, is that all political players, to use the words of Martin Carter, “are consumed” by it.

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GECOM should have referred the MMU report to the police and DPP with a view to prosecution

I welcome the report of the Gecom Media Monitoring Unit for the month of March 2015. It is well written and has not shied away from making firm conclusions on developments as it saw fit. The issue that concerns me however is what next? The March 10 “rivers of blood” editorial is not the first occasion on which the Guyana Chronicle, a state-owned newspaper, has spewed such hate. Anyone who can write with such venom is unlikely to bother with any adverse finding unless backed by some real sanction which the MMU is unable to impose, since it has no such power.

These reports might make useful reading and some of their findings will be noted in the Observers’ reports. But that would be after the elections are over and will have no practical effect on the outcome, while the hate-mongering by the Chronicle most likely will. And because the Chronicle and their employers know that, there is no reason why they would stop unless they are forced to confront the consequences of their criminal conduct.

The problem in my view lies with Gecom, which has constitutional responsibility for ensuring that elections are free and fair. The MMU is appointed by Gecom and its report should be submitted to Gecom for consideration and action. Gecom should then have immediately referred this report to the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions with a view to prosecution. It does not need any member of the public to tell Gecom that some of the matters addressed in the report point to criminal offences under at least two Acts.

Gecom must act now to address the rapid descent into outright lawlessness in this election season. Another MMU report is not likely to be published until after the May 11 election. But another report is not what we most need. Instead, we need free and fair elections in which no party or group hijacks the state media and corrupts the electoral process. And we need those who break the laws to be punished.

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The world according to President Ramotar

I was in Alexander Village to attend the wake of a friend two evenings ago which coincided with a meeting of the PPP/C held at the head of the street in which I grew up. I dropped in on the meeting at a point at which President Ramotar was speaking. I heard him tell the community which enjoys not a single public space for its hundreds of children to play, about his party’s plans for world class high-tech industrial parks covering hundreds of acres; and a community which for years has endured potholes at both points of entry, of his party’s plans for an international hub for trans-Atlantic airlines to facilitate South African Airways.

He told them of his government’s decision to expend billions on a five star hotel, but not why it deprives the country’s only national university of basic requirements for teaching and learning. And of the building of the Berbice Bridge but not of the discriminatory tolls Berbicians are made to pay. He told them too about all the food items banned by Burnham but not the unbanning by Hoyte. No, such truth would destroy the party line. He told them of what the party has given the country but not that it is taxpayers’ money that the party in government has spent, and as often as not mis-spent. Or worse, what the party officials have taken for themselves and their friends.

He boasted of his party’s democratic credentials but the villagers know that they have been deprived of local democracy since 1997. He boasted too about integrity but did not tell his audience that villagers have been cheated of their investment in New Guyana Company Limited, the party controlled company.

He boasted about procurement but not his party’s failure to establish the Public Procurement Commission for fourteen years.

It was a case of everything good being the PPP while everything bad is the fault of the PNC. And the reason suggested by the President for his party not getting the credit it deserves is because of the Stabroek News, the Kaieteur News for whose publisher he reserved some choice language, and – pointing directly at Gerhard Ramsaroop and me in the audience – those “misguided” individuals who malign the record and character of the PPP.

Many years ago political meetings in Alexander Village used to allow for questions. Not so any more. So at the close of the meeting I approached Mr Ramotar and asked him directly whether he thought verbally targeting individuals in an audience would help him to win over misguided individuals.

He could offer no response.

Alexander Villagers are polite to visitors, even those who visit them only at election time.