Last Sunday, the Chronicle published an article in which it reported that the Alliance for Change (AFC)’s Mr Moses Nagamootoo had voted in support of the Former President’s Benefits and Allowance Bill when it was passed in the National Assembly back in 2009. The article in question also revealed that Nagamootoo had lied to the nation and the National Assembly two weeks ago, and again during the election campaign of 2011, when he said he’d never supported the Bill. “It rattled my soul,” he was quoted as telling the House, his voiced tinged with melodrama.

What was even more damning about the report was that despite being an ardent critic of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), Nagamootoo never once let on that he once represented the firm, and had been the recipient of close to $7M in legal fees for whatever services he’d rendered.

Naturally, this public disclosure so embarrassed Nagamootoo, that in a vain attempt to avoid humiliation, he has since taken to responding, by way of letters to the press, saying that while he did vote in support of the ‘Bill’, he only did so because he was then a  member of the PPP, and perforce  had to follow the Party’s line.

Unfortunately, this most comical of responses did not succeed in pulling the wool over the public’s eye, as was intended, as the nation is well aware that Mr. Nagamootoo frequently  asserts that while with the PPP, he’d broken rank on many an occasion, and refused to carry the party line on a number of issues.

Question is: Why did he not break rank on the issue of the Former President’s Benefits and Allowance Bill?
The answer is simple: He had aspirations of becoming the next Presidential candidate of the PPP at the time, and, therefore, would have been a beneficiary of the said ‘Bill’.

Thing is: No amount of kerfuffling by Mr. Nagamootoo can fool the public any longer; he just cannot have his cake and eat it. In any event, he masquerades as a revolutionary and political moralist, and prides himself on being a surrogate of Cheddi Jagan, Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara all rolled into one.

But according to the dictates of revolutionary morality, one should always stick to one’s principles, at all costs; principles must not be sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. As such, Mr. Nagamootoo’s explanation is devoid of any credibility and runs hollow.

And while on the subject of NICIL, Mr. Nagamootoo pleads his Constitutional right to work. Of course, everyone enjoys that right; but that is beside the point. Mr. Nagamootoo cannot run around the country alleging corruption, cronyism and illegality against NICIL, without disclosing that as a lawyer for NICIL, he has been in receipt of millions of dollars as payment.

The public, therefore, is entitled to this information to determine whether he himself is part of the corruption, cronyism and illegalities which he alleges against NICIL. Also, he needs to explain why he accepted legal work from NICIL in the first place, knowing full well of all the wrongs taking place there.

Had he not known this at the beginning, why did he continue to work as their lawyer and accept payment when these wrongdoings eventually came to his attention?
In fact, according to him, he still works for NICIL, doing arbitration work, which is still ongoing. Certainly it is not party line that keeps him there.
All one can say, then, is that in his desperate attempt to defend himself, Nagamootoo has succeeded in digging himself into a deeper rut.