Jagdeo’s help would not be refused – President Granger
The relationship between President David Granger and Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo seems to be one of calm and possible openness.
In a recent but brief interview with Kaieteur News, Granger was asked to comment on
President David Granger and Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo during their first official meeting last year.
the status of his relationship with the Opposition in terms of the latter helping or lending a hand when it comes to matters of national importance. To this the President responded, “Helping?”
This publication reminded that Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo, had last year indicated that he was supposed to be assisting with a few tax matters.
Granger said, “I think helping is a strong word. It may even be an exaggeration…I am not sure that is an accurate description. I engaged him and we got so far as providing each other with a list of the shadow ministers.
“So our ministers now know which members of the Opposition could be contacted, in terms of say the communities, or public security or foreign affairs.”
The Head of State continued, “I am not aware that he has actually been approached on tax matters and this is a matter I can clarify with the Minister of Finance but if he (Jagdeo) wishes to help, I am very confident that help would not be turned down because he is a very experienced person in the matters which you referred to.”
Last year September, Jagdeo had told the media that he had offered help to President David Granger over ongoing tax cases.
With regard to his first meeting with the President, the Opposition Leader had stated, “I said we will share all of the institutional memory we have about those tax cases because … we don’t want the government to lose those tax cases based on bad legal representations because it will cost the treasury billions of dollars and us as taxpayers, people of this country.”
He added, “I did a rough calculation on about seven of those cases that I know, seven, maybe 10 of them and the tax outstanding will be over $20B that we were pursuing in court.
“We don’t want this government to lose, this government to lose those cases…because if they lose those cases it (will) cost taxpayers money and this is money that can come into the Treasury that can help to finance development.”
Granger had also expressed interest in having representatives of the Opposition on various boards and agencies. He had even said that he was also prepared to have frank discussions with the People’s Progressive Party on shared governance and agreeing to a mutual understanding on what that means for both parties.
The Head of State had disclosed his views on this matter during an episode of government’s televised programme, “The Public Interest” which was televised last year September.
Granger had said that shared governance is likely to take the form of having PPP members head certain Boards. He said that he has already proposed a Bipartisan Committee to deal with this matter and it is moving ahead in that regard.
Granger added, “It is now up to the PPP, and it depends on what the other side calls shared governance. We have a committee ready to engage the PPP on any issue at any time.”
