Is the Burnham Faction of the PPP &
The Jagdeo & Ramotar Funny Fellas
above the law????
To date, it seems none of the "big boys" of Burnham Faction of the PPP or Jagdeo & Ramotar Funny Fellas have faced corruption charges, and not one has been found guilty and jailed for stealing from the public purse.
What this tells us is that we journalists and other media practitioners who have been largely responsible for exposing alleged acts of corruption have been wrong.
We have been "seeing things" where they did not exist, chasing apparitions, wrongfully and recklessly accusing honest politicians and public officials of dishonesty, of stealing, when all along they have been men and women of unimpeachable rectitude.
Well, it's either that—in which case journalists from Kaiteur News & Stabroek News owe these people and the public thousands of apologies—or there is in place a code of protection that straddles investigators and dispensers of justice, that ensures that elite white collar criminals get away with murder, almost literally.
In fact, there is an uncanny connection between corruption, perceived or real, and murder. The investigations patterns are similar.
The police or Integrity Commission or other agencies are always "hot on the trail" of perpetrators.
When, after months, we hear nothing further, someone says the case is not "cold".
Then an individual is gunned down and we are told that he was a suspect in five, ten murders. Cases closed.
Arrests rates are close to zero.
Of all the murders committed a year,
how many arrests are made?
And of those, how many reach the trial stage?
Of this miniscule number, how many convictions are secured?
So whether or not we implement the death penalty, which remains law, it makes no difference.
Murderers know they will hardly be caught, far less hanged.
The same holds true for corrupt officials.
The only cases of note that have been prosecuted
over the past 50 years
are those few involving persons
accused of corrupt acts or scandals
during the time Burnham and Hoyte was in power.
And you and I know
that those Funny Fellas under Jagdeo & Ramotar
seem to have to continue doing more....
and the Older PNC Criminals
who were thiefing up to 1992
will sooner die of natural causes
instead of facing the finality of their trials in courtrooms.
Indeed, one might ask
why should they pay a price for anything
while hundreds like them
are seen at social events
rubbing shoulders with the very people
who accused them of corruption?
If I may use the reverse scenario,
the Burnham & Hoyte administration
faced numerous allegations of corruption.
From the House Of Isreal Thugs
to the Floating Barge that never worked ,
from billion-dollar projects that ran wildly beyond estimates
to siphoning funds off state enterprises,
the PNC regime was alleged to have broken corruption records.
Yet, twenty-one years
after the electorate voted the PNC out of office
based largely on perceptions of corruption and wastage,
not one of the PNC merry men (or women)
has been charged with anything!
Every now and then Jagdeo & Ramotar
will remind us about Crime & Corruption
under those Dark PNC Days..
But they never target any of the PNC Big-Boys or
former directors and senior managers of state enterprises.
And, by the law of averages,
not only will they never be charged,
but over time they are likely to fizz out
like the proverbial you-know-what.
So, can we conclude that
the PNC regime was not corrupt,
that all such allegations were spurious, malicious?
Similarly,
the current Jagdeo and Ramotar Government
has faced innumerable allegations of
unethical conduct and downright banditry.
Hundreds of millions of dollars
are said to have been pocketed by ministers,
their families and friends, and party financiers.
Could it be that all these allegations,
all the investigative reports
that appear in the print media
with documentation to support them, are hoaxes?
Is it that journalists and media houses
have hidden agendas, ulterior motives?
Or could it be that this is a society
in which the public code of conduct
is premised on institutionalised deception
that allows the high and mighty
to get away with corruption, even murder,
while the poor and powerless suffer
the consequences of revenue stolen?
I don't know. I am confused. You tell me.