Category: Letters to the editor

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A nonsensical analysis

The Guyana Chronicle on Tuesday, September 27, 2011, under a caption ‘Lies Exposed’ carries a statement in full by PPP Executive Committee member Mr Robert Persaud, “debunk[ing] recent statements issued by PNC’s APNU, et al on Guyana’s development.” Taking aim at former Finance Minister Mr Carl Greenidge, Mr Persaud said that Mr Greenidge “ignores the fact that in 2010, the Guyanese economy (at current prices) was more than fifteen times the size it was in 1991 when he was at the helm.”

Mr Persaud might very well be accused of engaging in some lies of his own. I assume he knows that there are two measures of the size of an economy – Gross Domestic Product and Purchas-ing Power Parity. Size ‘at current prices’ is not a meaningful concept, and GDP at current prices is not used by economists for making the type of long-term comparisons Mr Persaud undertakes. Real GDP would have been more appropriate, because it makes allowance for inflation which accounts for the bulk of the higher values we see. It seems that Mr Persaud engaged in some simplistic exercise creating a table comparing 1991 GDP with that of 2010 at current prices. In grade-three style, he then divided one into the other to arrive at the figure of 15! Surely there must be someone who could and should have told Mr Persaud that he was holding himself up to amusement since this is not even apples and oranges, but more like apples and chalk.

The politician in Mr Persaud probably wanted to suggest that the economy grew 15 fold (1500 per cent!) since the PPP/C came to power. That is absolutely and obviously nonsense, requiring an annual growth rate of 15.3%. In fact the average annual growth rate as reported by successive Ministers of Finance for the past eighteen years and disputed by other observers was 3.26%. Cumulatively then, in real terms the economy has grown by only 78.11% at best since 1992, hardly the kind of growth one expects from a resource-rich economy coming from a horribly low base (ie, it has not even doubled in close to 20 years).

The other point worth noting is the arbitrary date that Mr Persaud has chosen – 1991 – when we all know that Mr Greenidge was Finance Minister for a full three quarters in 1992. I suspect the reason for the choice of the year 1991 rather than 1992 is that it suits Mr Persaud’s purpose to project the PNC and Mr Greenidge in the worst possible light and thus show the PPP in the best possible circumstances, albeit false and contrived.

What Mr Persaud wanted to hide was the fact that in 1991 the economy grew – using the non-bogus yardstick real GDP – by 6.1% and in 1992 it was 7.7%, levels not achieved since Mr Bharrat Jagdeo became Finance Minister in 1995.

But Mr Persaud’s distortion goes to inflation as well. Mr Persaud refers to the inflation rate of 70% in 1991 without acknowledging that this was due almost entirely to a devaluation of the Guyana Dollar relative to the United States Dollar from G$45 to $101.75, more than 125%. The rate continued to decline in 1992 reaching G$125 to the US Dollar by October 1992 when Dr Jagan pledged to reduce it. It is now $204 to the US Dollar.

Mr Persaud also selectively relies on an IMF quote in 1988 – before the introduction of the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP). Is he not aware that on April 28, 1992 Mr Lewis Preston, the President of the World Bank, wrote the IDA Board of Directors in the following terms concerning Guyana: “Few countries have moved as far as Guyana in terms of implementing a comprehensive adjustment programme… and eliminated its arrears to international financial institutions.”

It is a sad testimony of the PPP and Mr Persaud that he would seek to ridicule Mr Greenidge for facing up to the truth about the state of the pre-ERP economy while he (Mr Persaud) can indulge in cheap distortions.

May I add that Mr Persaud might not know or wish to admit that before his administration signed on to the ERP, then President Hoyte invited Dr Cheddi Jagan as leader of the Opposition to attend a Cabinet meeting at which Dr Jagan grilled Mr Greenidge about the ERP.

Many Guyanese, including me, did not support the ERP either on ideological grounds, or because they did not think the ERP would succeed, or because of the programme’s immediate harsh social impact while its compensating ameliorative measures were slow in coming. But at least we have to credit the PNC and its finance team led by Mr Greenidge with courage, honesty and integrity, concepts that are largely alien in this era.

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WikiLeaks and Teixeira

The PPP leadership and indeed others are in a serious quandary over the WikiLeaks cables. These cables allow ordinary Guyanese a unique fly-on-the-wall view of the dangerous extent to which our state has become criminalized under the Jagdeo government while various officials and their friends have amassed considerable and inexplicable fortunes at the expense of the ordinary citizens.

These cables are not the product of amateurism or individual style. They are well structured, classified and sourced. Yet, following the publication in the media of a cable that revealed some collaboration between her and the US Embassy in Guyana, then Home Affairs Minister Gail Teixeira described its contents as “two-thirds” opinion without saying which third was factual. Her political boss refers to the cables as “impressions” while Dr Luncheon, reflecting his recent courtroom experiences refers to them as “hearsay.” Perhaps unable to grasp the significance of the revelations, presidential aspirant Donald Ramotar found them “slightly amusing.”

Let us examine a December 28, 2005 cable reporting on a meeting Ms Teixeira had with the US officials. It contains a Reference ID, date of creation, classification and origin, ie, the particular embassy. This is then followed by a summary which for the meeting Ms Teixeira had with the US officers on December 23, 2005 reads as follows:

“SUMMARY. Charge, Deputy Consul, and Pol. Off met with Minister of Home Affairs Gail Teixeira on December 23.

“Teixeira had requested a Consular briefing on trends in fake Guyanese civil documents detected by the Consular Section.

“Teixeira also described problems with control of the visa process in Guyana’s foreign missions… Teixeira also discussed voter registration problems that continue to dog the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) (septel). END SUMMARY.”

Here is a summary of the contents of the cable under the six captions identified therein.

1. No Control Over Birth, Marriage Registrations

Indicating that Ms Teixeira met with the US Embassy as recently as one month earlier, the first paragraph under the caption starts as follows: “Teixeira had asked Ambassador last month to send a Consular Officer to brief her on fraudulent birth and marriage certificates issued by the General Register Office (GRO) that had been detected by the Consular Section.”

2. Trying to Control Who Comes In and Who Stays Out

This caption begins with the following factual assertion: “Teixeira mentioned several suspicious visa cases on her plate.” The section also included the following direct quotes:

“a) However, she did suggest twice that her relationship with the Delhi Embassy was dictated by orders from higher authority.

“b) Teixeira said one of Guyana’s embassies and two honorary consuls in particular, are now her biggest problems on the visa front; and

“c) In Teixeira’s words, Guyana does not have an immigration policy. There is little control over visa issuance.”

3. Corruption Interferes Constantly

Under this caption Ms Teixeira is quoted as acknowledging there “was quite a lot of corruption in the immigration division,” and that a former advisor is “very closely linked to a number of networks, particularly the Chinese.” She is reported as describing “a slush fund financed by Brazilian fees for work permits that [two officials] had run. Unable to pin any direct evidence of illegal activity on [one of them], Teixeira said she had dealt with him by sending him on long-term leave.”

Ms Teixeira is further reported as stating that “while corruption also existed in the police force and GRO, the corruption of justices and magistrates was the most worrying. She said all Guyanese know which cases, magistrates, and lawyers are tainted by corruption. As a result, the government cannot win important convictions. Similarly, she said everyone knows who the ‘drug lawyers’ are, but the local bar association is too feeble to disbar anyone.”

4. Still Uneasy about American Religious Groups and Airstrips

This caption briefly addresses the Seventh Day Aviation medical group operating in Guyana and possible contamination of Amerindian communities by American religious groups.

5. Request for Assistance [by Ms. Teixeira]

The cable states that “Teixeira made two requests for assistance.” These were for 1) “computeriz[ing] the civil document process … and creat[ing] scanned archival copies of all old records” and 2) “auditing the GRO’s internal control procedures.”

6. Comments

In two closing paragraphs the cable expresses opinions including that “Teixeira criticizes her predecessor Gajraj’s imperious, direct control over the Ministry’s workings, [but] she has only slightly loosened the reins of control herself.” The cable ends with the unflattering but not unfair assessment that “more than a few Guyanese insiders think of her as a lightweight better suited to her previous position as Minister of Youth, Culture, and Sport.”

Not only does this cable debunk Ms Teixeira’s statement about two-thirds being “opinion” but it also raises the possibility of another extremely serious matter which she herself brooked with Stabroek News in an article on September 4. She said that she is “known for not disclosing internal party or government matters to outsiders.” Known to whom and in any case in one fell swoop, as evidenced by a single cable, she appears to have done quite a bit of disclosing.

While I am not surprised that under President Jagdeo’s dysfunctional administration the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was excluded from a request for foreign assistance, it is of concern that Ms Teixeira was not accompanied at the meeting by a representative from her ministry. Moreover, it requires some explanation that a minister of the government could be so friendly with a foreign state to which her boss was often openly antagonistic. Maybe Ms Teixeira considered her relationship with the US so special as to exclude them from her noble policy of “not disclosing internal party or government matters to outsiders.”

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Nothing illegal about unincorporated bodies operating by the rules

Mr. Claude Raphael writing in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek `Government should be supported in its proposal re GCB’ as `Former Chairman Snr. Selection (cricket) Panel’ has written in support of President Jagdeo’s intervention in the on-going saga of cricket maladministration in Guyana. In so doing Mr. Raphael makes a number of sweeping statements including pronouncements attributed to Chief Justice (ag.) Ian Chang in a decision the latter handed down in the internecine Cricket Board dispute which came before him.

The status of unincorporated entities is far from the straightforward “non-entity” that Mr. Raphael says the Chief Justice deemed them, let alone being illegal, which is far from the case. In this coming Sunday’s Business Page I will review the court’s decision but for now I think it useful that we dispel the myth or fear created by Mr. Raphael’s letter that all those unincorporated entities which have been operating and doing excellent work in Guyana are somehow illegal.

Whilst there are certain juridical limitations imposed on unincorporated entities, once the directors or the management committee members, by whatever name called, are operating within the constitution or by-laws of their organization and the general laws of the country such as noise nuisance, taxation etc., there is nothing illegal about them. They need not fear the police coming after them, or being sued in a civil matter. Let me make a brief comparison: minors also have similar juridical incapacities but illegal they surely are not.

Finally, I wonder the extent to which Mr. Raphael may have been a directly interested party in the court matter and even more pointedly whether the cricket club(s) to which he belongs, or entities on which he would have served in a senior capacity for many years, were “illegal” unincorporated entities.

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Assent for Bill came 628 days after passage in National Assembly

On Wednesday we collected from the Office of the President the most recent batch of Official Gazettes. Included among these was a Legal Supplement to the Official Gazette dated October 12, 2010 and containing the Forest Act # 6 of 2009.

The Bill for that Act was passed on January 22, 2009 and assented to by the President on October 12, 2010 – 628 days after the passage in the National Assembly. Under the constitution the President has twenty-one days to assent to bills.

Not only does the President continue to show contempt for the country’s constitution which he has taken an oath to uphold, but it seems that he and his Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General are comfortable backdating of the Official Gazette, arguably the country’s most important legal publication.

One must wonder whether such questionable conduct and delay was Vaitarna related or is the result of some persuasion from Norway.

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Nandalall should direct his advice to Jagdeo, not Kissoon

In a letter appearing in Sunday Kaieteur News July 31 and captioned “Mr. Kissoon is treading on dangerous waters”, Mr. Anil Nandlall, signing as “MP and Attorney-at-Law for His Excellency, President Bharrat Jagdeo”, seeks to offer advice to Mr. Kissoon and threatens contempt of court proceedings over comments made by Mr. Kissoon in his Kaieteur News column.

Mr. Nandlall knows that Mr. Kissoon is represented in the relevant matter by two Attorneys-at-law, with a third soon to be added. As one of those attorneys I would respectfully suggest to Mr. Nandlall that he should spare himself and our client such gratuitous advice and instead direct it to his client, the President, who makes a habit of commenting, like Sir Oracle, on matters that are sub judice.

I wonder if Mr. Nandlall, as a regular attorney-at-law for the President, has cautioned his client of the impropriety of such interventions. If he has, it would be helpful to readers if Mr. Nandlall would comment on an article appearing in Stabroek News of July 30, in which the President makes loaded references to criminal charges against a person involved in a matter in which the President as Minister of Information is currently adjudicating.

Guyanese are aware of the numerous occasions on which Mr. Nandlall’s client has shown contempt for our courts as well as our constitution. His client now demonstrates in the complaint against CNS 6 unmistakable bias and rank abuse of Presidential power, a combination so egregious as to make any comment by Mr. Kissoon pale in comparison.

Finally while Mr. Nandlall seems unable to refer to Mr. Jagdeo without the title His Excellency, I would like to remind him that his instructions were to bring the action against Mr. Kissoon in the name Bharrat Jagdeo, which he did.