Nagamootoo typifies the degeneracy of our political culture
After pointing out that there were foreign citizens serving in Guyana’s parliament, Nagamootoo went on to add; “… one such foreign citizen voted with the parliamentary opposition to remove the duly elected national government.” This has to be political depravity of the WORST kind; I emphasize the word “worst.”
Nagamootoo had in mind, Charrandass Persaud. But this enfeebled, ceremonial, figure-head, prime minister whose political career has been blighted by crass opportunism and ostracization by all the forces he has been associated with chose to hide the value Charrandass brought personally to him, Nagamootoo, when his government was de jure from 2015 to 2018 and had a one-seat majority – 33 versus 32.
From 2015 onwards up to this day, Charrandass, the foreign national in parliament, through his vote allowed Nagamottoo to collect tens of millions of dollars from 2015 to the current year of 2020 because Charran’s vote allowed for the passage of legislation that phenomenally hiked the prime minister’s salary and pension retroactively.
I am not going to write on Nagamootoo’s morality because I don’t have time with any libel writs from people like Nagamootoo but I can ask a question – if Charran was morally wrong, by virtue of his dual citizenship, to sit in parliament and vote in a no-confidence motion (NCM) sponsored by the opposition then by logical moral standards, was he not wrong to vote in situations where the government of APNU+AFC benefitted? Therefore, it is incumbent on Nagamootoo to return those millions he has been collecting as salary and pension.
For four consecutive years, this very Charrandass voted to pass four budgets of the APNU+AFC governments parts of which no doubt caused APNU+AFC to lose the 2020 election. In passing, it should be noted that the turnout in a PNC stronghold –Plaisance – in the March election was 51 percent. Could one of the reasons be what those budgets contained? For example, Plaisance has a large fleet of animal-drawn vehicles. In one of those budgets, the license for these was raised by $10, 000.
Let us examine other manifestations of Nagamootoo’s political depravities. In 2011, neither the APNU nor the AFC won a majority of the votes in the general election, yet both parties conspired with each other to bring about an NCM. Nagamootoo and Granger benefitted from the intended NCM because it was fear of such a parliamentary process by President Ramotar that led to a national election before it was constitutionally due.
Is it possible that APNU+AFC lost the 2020 poll because of the hypocrisy of both Granger and Nagamootoo himself? Nagamootoo denounced the NCM openly stating in the Chronicle that Charran took a bribe to vote the way he did. Amazingly, Charran has not sued him as yet. Granger became president out of Ramotar’s fear of an NCM. Yet in the final rally of the campaign, Granger told his bussed audience that if he is reelected, he would make sure the no-confidence clause in the constitution is removed (see my column of Sunday, January 19, 2020, “David Granger epitomizes the inherent flaws of Homo sapiens.”
Let’s examine more of Nagamootoo’s political degeneracy. He writes, “When (Charrandass Persaud) voted with the parliamentary opposition to remove the duly elected national government! Guyana has since been plunged into an unprecedented situation of constitutional difficulties and political uncertainty.” But the APNU+AFC regime did not fall because of the NCM on December 21, 2018.
It ignored all the constitutional requirements that should have led to its fall. The NCM had no effect on the government. The regime continued with business as usual. It even went into the direction of a masquerade. It removed its ministers who were dual citizens and effectively kept them in place simply by assigning them different titles.
Cabinet was never suspended. Cabinet, under the pretext of “cabinet outreach” went about for months campaigning for APNU+AFC dishing out resources to all parts of Guyana. At one time, the outreached merged into a rally so you couldn’t tell the difference. This was in Bartica where Nagamootoo donned the green colours of the PNC and not the AFC’s yellow clothes. At that rally or retreat, he warned Guyana that the youths will go on a rampage if the house-to-house registration (HTHR) was ended. At that same rally, in relation to HTHR being stopped by GECOM, the Finance Minister had exclaimed “war break”.
It turned out that the Jordan’s war break was “break wind.” The youths did not rampage. Nagamootoo went to his home village of Whim in Berbice and urged the youths to rebel if HTHR was stopped. The youths chased him away. Life is unpredictable. Granger will no longer be president. Nagamootoo will no longer be prime minister.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
