Another con game!

Dear Editor:
In a classified conversation that Bharrat Jagdeo has with the then US Ambassador His Excellency Mr. Robinson on October 2, 2006, that was leaked by WIKILEAKS; he outlined his priorities for the second term as: breaking Guyana’s wave of violent crime; improving the investment climate; a ten-year plan to climb out of poverty; better working relationship with the donor community, including more IDB debt relief with support from the USA; pushing for local elections; building parliamentary capacity; expanding civil society’s role; and opening the media.

Of these eight priorities set by the second Jagdeo regime, only one can be considered as being achieved – debt relief. That is a 15 per cent pass mark and in any examination can be considered as a big F; FAILED!

In that conversation with the US Ambassador, Jagdeo claimed that combating violent crime is his top priority. Yet when he got the billions of dollars in support from the British in 2006 for the security sector Project to actually help the State combat violent crime, he balked at the proposal. Jagdeo was more interested in the cash and equipment for street patrols rather than develop a security strategy with significant elements of capacity building and training for the Police Force.

Every developmental deficit in Guyana is seen as an opportunity to rape the Treasury totally ignoring the human development needs of the people. Aren’t the key members of the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabal aware that the crime wave in Guyana is driving investors and productive people away from Guyana?

It has been empirically proven as in the case of South Africa in a paper by Ozler et al that crime “divert resources away from productive activity and cause the migration of the best brains”.

But this fact is just beyond the cerebral matter of members of the Jagdeo / Ramotar cabal. It is now clear to all that the only reason they refused the billions of dollars of money from the British was because the UK demanded full accountability and transparency on the MILK and HONEY and the greed machine that controls Freedom House cannot live with accountability.
Their modus operandi is to use a flawed procurement system with no Public Procurement Commission in place to feed the wolf pack more MILK and HONEY. They do not care whether the people are protected and safe from the criminals.

Well the British will have none of it and made it clear they are not prepared to pour money down the pockets of the corrupt Jagdeo/Ramotar cabal.
The favoured princeling, Clement Rohee, is on his knees politically and all of a sudden the political players in Freedom House are willing to rework the British plan, some eight years late as a last minute effort to save Rohee.
The last thing on the minds of the PPP leaders at this time is the safety of our people and the people’s action must register in their minds of the cabal that we know their game.

As Jagdeo accepted in his conversation with the US Ambassador, it is all “political rhetoric, necessary but not prescriptive”. What a shame that the Guyanese people did not hook on to these professional con-man and their games earlier. Now is not too late!
Dr Asquith Rose and
Harish S. Singh