It is common knowledge that under Mr. Jagdeo’s Presidency, Guyana became a deeply messed up nation. It already was but Jagdeo’s reckless, irresponsible, indisciplined regime took Guyana further down the immoral slopes. Here is a story that is one thousand percent factual. It symbolizes all that was depraved in Guyana under Mr. Jagdeo’s watch.
There is an empty lot at the junction of New Market and Waterloo Streets. On it used to be the Ministry of Housing under the portfolio of Agnes Bend-Kirton during the Presidency of Forbes Burnham. The building was left in a bad state during the tenure of Desmond Hoyte.
Under the Economic Recovery Programme, state properties had to be divested and the building was sold to a well-known African-Guyanese businessman who started out in a small way, but worked himself up the economic ladder of success. This businessman never built on the land and strangely never fenced it.
One day, the businessman was informed that construction workers were on the ground fencing the land. He went to the site and enquired from the foreman what they were doing on his property. The entrepreneur almost got apoplexy when he heard the explanation.
One of the richest men in Guyana whose friendship with the then President with whom all Guyanese are familiar had assigned his workers to fence the land. All ended well because Mr. Jagdeo’s friend backed down. He was told that he was usurping legal, private property.
What is the explanation? What is the lesson to be learnt from this incident? The presidential connected guy honestly thought it was governmental asset and given his relationship with the President he could take the land. The lesson to be learned is how undemocratic government operates.
Undemocratic government is essentially oligarchic. The oligarchs connected to the presidential palace have unlimited access to state properties. They can do what they want. They lacerate the rule of law.
Why did another friend of Mr. Jagdeo drive into one of his construction sites and order his supervisor to lock the gates and instructed them not to let NIS inspectors leave the compound. In the US, do you know how that would have been dealt with? That was a serious breach of the law. NIS inspectors are equivalent to revenue officials. To hinder them in their investigation is a serious violation of the law in most countries.
Do you need a doctorate in political theory to tell you why this presidential friend acted this way? The answer was his relationship with the presidency. President Jagdeo never uttered even one word of castigation to his friend. The obvious question is: has the presidential connection in the New Market Street incident done before what he attempted to do in New Market Street? It is naÏve to think that the New Market Street incident is an isolated one? Obviously, it is not and this is where the APNU-AFC Government comes into focus.
After six months in power with an energetic Assets Recovery Unit, where is the information on the abominable, oligarchic take over of public assets by the presidential acolytes during the PPP Government? Where is the evidence of ubiquitous corruption? The enigma is not in the existence of the PPP’s depravities but in the APNU-AFC Government’s lack of alacrity in telling the nation about it.
Most of the skullduggery took place after the 2001 General Elections. From thereon, Jagdeo broke free from PPP control because he felt that he no longer had to accept edicts from the PPP’s hierarchy.
He was now in his own. He won an election as the presidential candidate. From that year, Jagdeo virtually handed over the country to his business friends and the state mandarins and PPP big wigs that he trusted and whom in turn he knew would be loyal to him.
There is a plethora of Augean Stables under the twelve years of Jagdeo and three years of Ramotar that the torchlight needs to be shone on. But the present Government seems reluctant to buy batteries for the torchlight.
One can literally count on one’s fingers the items of financial misbehaviour that the government says it has found. There is the Jennifer Westford case. The Assests Recovery Unit has cited Guysuco head under the PPP, Jajendra Singh, for being involved in questionable financial transactions.
There is the GPL guy who paid himself $27 million in retroactive pay. That is three so far. We cannot count the Guyoil gas scam because the government has vehemently refused to disclose any names. Maybe all these years we were fooling ourselves – there was no skullduggery at all under the PPP.
