Khurshid Sattaur uses his position to spite people

The job of the media is to perform as the watchdog for the society. Left to their own devices, politicians would do things inimical to the interest of the society. History is full of cases of politicians using money that is not theirs to achieve certain things that they would not normally have acquired on their pay. In the United States almost each day the story of a corrupt politician using campaign funds as their own slush funds, politicians buying services of other officials and the list goes on. Some have gone on vacation with people’s money, purchased expensive gifts for wives and girlfriends and even bribed people to help them remain in office. The media has been reporting on these things and there have been prosecutions and convictions. But at no time have the media been made to suffer for the reporting. Of course, there have been cases where people who exposed corruption actually suffered. Frank Wills, the man who discovered the Watergate burglary, was the security attendant who discovered taped locks in the Watergate office and apartment complex on June 17, 1972. For a while he was seen as a hero but in the end he suffered. He lost job after job and in the end such was the pressure that he had to resort to shoplifting for which he was prosecuted. In Guyana one newspaper, Kaieteur News, has been exposing corruption and behaviour that is not in keeping with people in public office. More recently, the newspaper zeroed in on the operations of a Chinese logging company, the nepotism in a government department and on some questionable deals, some of which forced the government into action. Toes were squashed and tempers flared. In the end some of the people targeted, decided that they would use their position to go after the people exposing those things that the politicians wanted to be kept under wraps. Commissioner General of the Guyana Revenue Authority, Khurshid Sattaur, was criticized for what was obviously an act of nepotism. For sure, he did not take kindly to the expose, so he decided that he would retaliate in the only way he could, use his office to visit his critic, Kaieteur News, with sanctions within his power. I was on vacation when I learnt that the GRA was going after two vehicles that a remigrant brought in and actually loaned to the publisher of Kaieteur News. When I saw that GRA was going after Glenn Lall for using the vehicles I was surprised, because there is nothing in the laws that says a man cannot loan his vehicle. The cover came off when the GRA decided that Glenn Lall would be at the centre of the probe. Lall had nothing to do with the vehicles, but Sattaur decided that he should be investigated. This matter is still before the courts and I am sure that it will go nowhere. But Sattaur had shown that he was prepared to break the rules to get after Lall. He leaked confidential information to the state-owned newspaper then claimed that he was acting because the newspaper had raised the issue. There was no way that the Chronicle would know about the vehicles. I know the reporters there and I know that they do not chase after stories readily. Then the Chronicle reported on Kaieteur News’s importation of printing ink. All the newspapers import ink from the same source, but the GRA had on one occasion detained a shipment because of the label on a drum of ink. The strange thing is that this probe was limited to Kaieteur News, although every other newspaper was bringing in ink from the same source. By extension, if Kaieteur News was using ink from extra-regional sources and claiming otherwise then the same should have applied to the other newspapers. Instead, only Kaieteur News was being targeted. Sattaur had exposed his vendetta. Chronicle, to its credit did contact the shipper and got all the answers but Sattaur decided that he was still going to investigate, because Chronicle had started the story about the ink. The people in the wings would have eventually concluded that GRA was merely doing his job, but then this past week I got concrete information that there was a witch-hunt. Kaieteur News got incontrovertible evidence of a plan by former President Bharrat Jagdeo and Commissioner General of the Guyana Revenue Authority to break the Kaieteur News. The evidence revealed Jagdeo advising Sattaur on an impending major audit of the newspaper as a public ploy to defend the GRA and Sattaur against criticisms by the Kaieteur News. This was lawlessness at its best. I must now be worried because it shows that officialdom can target individuals out of spite. I now understand why people always say that they don’t want to say anything because of victimization. Having written this, I now await my role as a target.