RAMSAMMY ATTEMPTS TO COVER-UP - Former Minister Ramsammy is trying to mislead the Guyanese public and the world at large - in defence of the loan that he approved to the Guyana Rice Producers Association, an organisation that has been controlled by the PPP for more than 40 years. It is a typical diversionary tactic used by Mr. Ramsammy to blame others shift people's attention from his mishandling of the rice industry and agriculture - in general.
I am - as a GRDB Director - privy to the agreement that was signed by Ramsammy, Jagnarine Singh and Mr. Seeraj. The past GRDB Directors were not aware of this AGREEMENT. I was secret document, until the current Forensic auditors unearth this mystery. It is not true that it a public document.
NOTHING IS MADE PUBLIC AT THE GRDB - when Directors are forced to sign a document swearing to SECRECY - NEVER to disclose any form of information to the public. It is a SECRET club, which was run by the PPP and this new government seem - HELL BENT - to want to continue to do things the same old way.
In a recent discussion of with the President of the Guyana Rice Producers Association, and also GRDB Director, Mr. Leeka Rambrige, he disclosed that he has no knowledge of $100 million being received into the RPA Bank account. He said that the Bank Account never received money of that sort to pay to rice farmers.
Rambrige said that the Bank account has about $2 Million. "We made no arrangement to borrow any money from the GRDB and we have no obligation to repay what we did not borrow." Mr. Seeraj has caused the RPA to be brought into disrepute and many rice farmers are very angry about this transaction.
The main issue over the $100 million is the way in which this money was released to the Rice Producers Association. None of the past Board members are able to confirm that this matter was ever discussed at the GRDB meetings - before or after the loan was granted to the Mr. Seeraj.
There is further investigation going on into this mystery. In the meanwhile, the current General Manager, Nizam Hassan, who claims that he is Acting in place of Mr. Jagnarine Singh, whose resignation was accepted by Minister of State, Joseph Harmon. But according to George Jervis, the current PPP-appointed Permanant Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Singh is on 9 months leave. A person on 9 months leave is unprecidented in under the Laws of Guyana and his own contract of employment.
Whatever Mr. Seeraj spent the money on and for whatever the purpose - is immaterial to us, as Board members. I shall be asking that the Board file legal action against Mr. Seeraj and others, who signed the PROMISSORY NOTE - rather than a substantial co-lateral to protect the public funds in the case of a default of repayment.
I would expect that the Current Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder - given his authority and dictatorial obligations under the Laws of Guyana - to instruct the GRDB's legal representatives, Cameron and Shepherd, to file legal action against the 3 defendants, Leslie Ramsammy, Jagnarine Singh and Seeraj, for mishandling the funds of the GRDB and a separate writ aganst Mr.Seeraj, who had no authority to borrow $100 miilion for the RPA. No one knows, if there are more one Bank account for the RPA.
The alledged misdemenors and misappropriation of public funds is happening at time when the rice farmers are facing huge problems and difficulties to sell their paddy at reasonable price - due to the lack of markets.
Not very long ago, Mr. Ramsammy boasted that there was endless market for rice and paddy. How sudden now there are no markets. He said during the May 2015 General Campaign that the RPA Action Committee leaders, Jinnah Rahman and Dr. Turhane Doerga were misleading the rice farmers by telling them that the rice industry was in crisis. Ramsammy and seeraj said that there was no crisis. Today they bringing out rice farmers on the streets of Georgetown blaming the Granger Administration for not paying heed to the plight of the farmers.
Ramsammy and the PPP has had no real interest in the rice industry and agriculture in general - except to get rice farmers and other farmers, who are largely of Indian descent, to vote for the PPP at elections.
Rice farmers are now once again used by the PPP to make this new government look bad and blame them for the current crisis. In the meanwhile, the new Minister Noel Holder, is behaving like Ponchous Pilot, "virtually washing his hands from the on-going rice crisis" - placing President David Granger in a very embarrassing position. Rice is our staple diet; employs over 120, 000 people and is a significant foreign exchange earner.
