Jagdeo amassing great wealth to buy loyalty – Ramjattan
The Bharrat Jagdeo administration accumulated and amassed great wealth which it used to buy the loyalty of supporters and to punish opponents.
This observation was made by Alliance For Change Leader - Khemraj Ramjattan, who described Guyana’s democracy as ‘Sultanistic’, which he said will unravel so quickly that even the ‘Sultan’ will be befuddled.
“I see our Sultan befuddled in Guyana,” Ramjattan said, in obvious reference to President Bharrat Jagdeo.
According to Ramjattan, while many people refer to Guyana as an elected dictatorship or a fragile democracy, he is impressed with the ‘Sultanistic’ description given by a distinguished professor in a foreign affairs journal.
He said that the attributes of such a democracy is a regime with a national leader who expands his personal power at the expense of formal institutions. It also involves a political cabal around such a ‘Sultan’, which appeals to no ideology and has no purpose other than maintaining their personal authority.
AFC Presidential Candidate Khemraj Ramjattan
Ramjattan said that they managed to do these things by procuring aid and investment monies, “a large proportion of which is then funneled to the ‘Sultan’ and his cronies.”
He said that the kind of democracy being practiced in Guyana keeps the masses de-politicised, disorganised and divided by paying the population off with subsidies.
And when the administration is unable to do this, Ramjattan said that the state engages in surveillance and media control and intimidation of citizens.
“It is marked by high levels of corruption and unemployment…
Ramjattan said that local businessmen had revealed to a World Bank team that they have to pay a 15% bribe on government contracts and three percent on their annual sales to those in authority.
“So if any businessman in Guyana were to make gross sales of $100M, 3.5 million goes to paying somebody something to do business in Guyana…and this is not a perception index,” he stressed.
Ramjattan also pointed to the absolute inequality which obtains in Guyana with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
The inequality, he said, creates distrust, mistrust and a general disequilibrium, resulting in a lack of cooperative spirit and “the madness that we see all around us such as crime, corruption, violence, drunkenness and vulgarity.
