Category: Letters to the editor

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Twelve priorities for the coalition

I extend to the APNU and the AFC congratulations on the historic agreement to contest the upcoming elections as a joint entity. Whilst I am disappointed that the negotiations appear to have centred not around the programmes necessary to restore to Guyana good governance, democracy and the welfare of the people but around how the fruits of electoral success will be divided, I am yet pleased with the outcome.

The decades-old domination first by the PNC and then by the PPP have validated the age-old saying that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Of course, power also reveals and it would be interesting to witness how those who had not previously held political power would operate in any new dispensation following the May 11, 2015 elections.

I am not unmindful of the fact that the AFC’s Mr. Moses Nagamootoo served as a minister in the PPP government and that the party’s leader Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan was a leading member of that party prior to leaving to form the AFC.

I believe I share with my fellow Guyanese the optimism that the cloud of lawlessness, corruption, favouritism, nepotism, abuse of office and the pursuit of personal wealth which appears to have afflicted many in the ruling class, will now lift. I am writing this letter to share with the leadership of the APNU and the AFC my own thoughts on some of the priorities which I would like to see established should they win the elections and form the government.

Before I do so, however, I wish to seek clarification on one of the issues on which agreement was announced. The APNU it is stated will have the presidency and one position of Vice-President while the Prime Minister will come from the AFC which will also have two positions of Vice-President. Under the Constitution the Prime Minister is a Vice President, “and he shall have precedence over any other Vice President”: Article 102 of the Constitution.
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President’s announcement of elections date did not comply with constitutional or legal requirements

We note the announcement by President Ramotar that he has named May 11, 2015 as the date for general elections. We are concerned however that the announcement did not address the status of the Tenth Parliament which was prorogued on November 10, 2014 nor did it comply with the constitutional requirement for the naming of the date of elections.

It is our view that the life of the Tenth Parliament can only come to an end by dissolution and the naming of the date for elections done by way of a proclamation.

Prorogation of the Parliament is done under Article 70 by proclamation and while the Constitution does not expressly so state, it is our opinion that a proclamation is required either to re-convene or to dissolve the Parliament. And in relation to the naming of the date for elections, article 61 of the Constitution explicitly requires a proclamation by the President.

If we can call attention to earlier years and specifically the 2011 elections, there were four proclamations as follows:

27 September: Dissolving Parliament.

27 September: Dissolving the ten Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs).

9 October: Setting 28 November as date for parliamentary elections.

9 October: Setting 28 November as date for election of members of RDCs.

It is our opinion that until similar proclamations are issued the announcement made by the President on Tuesday January 21, naming May 11 as the date for elections has no legal or constitutional effect. As citizens we find it totally unacceptable that the President in his rather extensive address did not discuss the issue of the Tenth Parliament, leaving the country in continuing uncertainty in respect of the Parliament and to his intention to comply with the requirements of the Constitution.

The President needs to remove the uncertainty and take the logical steps which the Constitution requires.

Alissa Trotz
Christopher Ram

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Postings on website were misrepresented on TV programme

Stabroek News of January 16, 2015 carried a letter captioned ‘Informed speculation,’ in which Mr Kit Nascimento, sought to respond, in defence of Mr Winston Brassington, Chairman of Atlantic Hotel Inc, to an editorial in the newspaper of January 6, 2015 titled ‘Questions continue over Marriott deal, opening date.’

Mr Nascimento, who did not disclose any interlocking relationships with Mr Brassington, with the hotel company and with Guyana Power and Light of which Brassington is chairman, or with NICIL of which Brassington is the CEO, accused the Stabroek News of “introduc[ing] a new practice of journalism, the reporting of ‘informed speculation,’ to justify unsubstantiated, undocumented, unsupported reporting published as fact by his newspaper.” That accusation, language and all, would be quite appropriate to Mr Nascimento himself.

In a recent television programme ‘moderated’ and described by him as the “third broadcast programme on the progress and development of the Marriott Hotel,” Mr Nascimento in introductory remarks, said, “This week Tuesday … Mr Christopher Ram, on his personal blog, which was reported in the Kaieteur News …” The programme, clearly initiated and manipulated by Mr Brassington, included, in addition to him, the unsuspecting Project Manager of the Marriott Hotel construction and the Marriott representative in Guyana.

Having as his premise this fictitious blog, Mr Nascimento then proceeded to ask a series of leading questions, no doubt prepared with the extensive assistance of Mr Brassington, with Nascimento casually throwing in words like Ram “suggested” and Ram “implied.”

Had Mr Nascimento taken the elementary, responsible and professional step of verifying his assertions and allegations with my website he would have noticed (a) that the articles to which the Kaieteur News referred were posted in February 2013 – nearly two years earlier; (b) that never in the four-part series did I make any allegation, let alone a “serious allegation” that Marriott Hotel was a “cut price” hotel; and (c) that I did not say that the construction agreement did not provide for supervision.

I would not waste my time or that of readers to repeat the text of the four-part series of articles on chrisram.net beginning February 17, 2013 under the caption ‘Soul for Sale,’ which incidentally was a pun on the hotel and not Mr Brassington. Sadly, I am unable to describe Mr Nascimento’s moderation of the programme in the way that he sardonically did the Stabroek News editorial as “a new practice,” but would prefer to use his own formulation and describe his/Brassington’s programme as based on false, fabricated and fictitious information presented in a disgraceful, malicious, unethical and unprofessional manner.

Editor, everyone has a right to earn a living. But I am sure that accounting is not the only field that requires engagements to meet basic ethical and professional principles and that asks its practitioners to refuse contrived, orchestrated assignments regardless of the size of the fee dangled. When individuals violate these principles they devalue their profession. And when a profession is devalued, the wider society is also devalued.

Mr Brassington is aware that the Marriott articles on my website were two years old. But like the Stabroek News editorial they are as relevant today as they are factual. As an officer of a government company, Mr Brassington has a duty to respond to legitimate concerns and questions asked of his actions involving public resources. The use of ventriloquists using evasive tactics is not only cowardly but totally unacceptable.

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Guyana as a nation of laws

I was more than a little bit surprised by the statement in Mr. Lincoln Lewis’ letter that “[Guyana] is a nation of laws”: (Stabroek News 08-12-14, Constitutional Conversation). At best, it is a compendious articulation of one of the aspirations in the Preamble to the Constitution of Guyana to forge a “… harmonious community based on democratic values, social justice, fundamental rights, and the rule of law.”

To suggest that Guyana has attained the status of a nation of laws is not only dangerously misguided but a complete contradiction of all that Mr. Lewis has courageously argued for decades. In fact, I do not think that Mr. Lewis believes that the rule of law prevails in Guyana.
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Bacchus’ excursion avoids the real issues concerning Nandlall

Attorney-at-Law Murseline Bacchus (S/N November 27), to defend Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, against irresistible inferences of illegality from his infamous telephone conversation with Kaieteur News (KN) senior reporter, Mr. Leonard Gildarie, takes us back to a case 184 years ago in feudal England.

Mr. Bacchus was purportedly responding to a report in the Kaieteur News of Thursday November 6, 2014, under the caption “The world is watching police investigation – APNU”.

In the article, Mr. Joseph Harmon, an Opposition frontbencher and himself an attorney-at-law, raised concerns about the capacity and integrity of the authorities to undertake an independent investigation into the telephone conversation in which Mr. Nandlall objectified women; solicited for sexual purposes, on behalf of an uncle, a reporter of the newspaper; confessed to restraining the same uncle from taking serious criminal action against the newspaper proprietor; admitted to corruption involving public funds, drew attention to the increased activity against KN following the accusation by KN’s proprietor that his vehicle (Nandlall) was engaged in taking photographs of the newspaper building; declared knowledge of [an] impending armed attack[s] against the newspaper and its staff, and referred to a deal involving the President with the proprietor’s wife over a tax evasion matter.

This was, of course, the same conversation in which Nandlall boasted of his blood descent from the ancient Hindu warrior caste, Kshatriya, and encouraged Mr. Gildarie to leave his current employer and join the “elitist’ press unit being set up by the Government.
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