AKA PNC!
Ministers spending ‘nuff’, personal money
This columnist is saying with emphatic assertion that a minister in the first week of this month bought a property in a fancy section of Georgetown, east of Sheriff Street, for a colossal sum. The seller is a woman who works for the government. I gave Peter Ramsaroop this information in the National Park yesterday. I have written about very expensive SUVs bought by ministers for personal use.
The son of a minister told me that with duty, one of the SUVs will cost 60 million. He called this figure in the presence of some known citizens that I have named in two previous columns. I have been advised that the $60 million figure is too high and that it is $45 million. The personal purchase of a $45 million vehicle by a minister brings into sharp focus the Trumpian rhetoric, “draining the swamp.”
If anything was certain in this world, it would have been the reaction of the PNC and AFC leaders, that the PPP ministers are living an ostentatious, sybaritic, debauched lifestyle, with many of them driving around $50 million SUVs which they purchased for their own personal use. AFC and PNC leaders would have promised that they would drain the swamp if they were elected.
In fact, like Trump, they did promise to drain the swamp. Trump brought in multi-millionaires into his Cabinet. In Guyana, rich ministers fill the Cabinet. Trump added lots of mud to the swamp. APNU+AFC has so filled up the swamp that the largest construction company will not be able to drain it in time for the 2025 election.
The leadership of the AFC and PNC are on record as stating that Charrandass was in receipt of money to vote in support of the no-confidence motion – Moses Nagamootoo has been explicit on that accusation in the Chronicle. Charrandass has sued Khemraj Ramjattan, but strangely has not touched Nagamootoo, whose semantics in the Chronicle were far more libelous.
It was Ramjattan who told Guyanese that someone told him; “listen ‘maan’, before he voted, ah hear Charran de mekking enquiries ‘bout buying gold.” Ramjattan said he passed over the information to the Commissioner of Police and thus began the inquiry into bribe-taking. But let’s expose asininity in the exercise of power in Guyana.
Here is a hypothetical example before we describe the asininity. A police officer is seen at a five-star hotel drinking often with a businessman. The politician says he is in the pocket of the businessman. But that is speculation. Suppose the man is paying for his own drinks. Suppose the hotel gives him a special discount. But the facts on the officer’s colleague are glaring. He actually has two expensive cars in his name and two expensive houses.
What is the point? We can only speculate when we see the officer drinking, but there is no guessing with the second officer; he has serious assets.
Let’s make a comparison with Charrandass and some ministers. Charran said he voted because of conscience. His detractors said he took money. Where is the money Charran took? Where are his extraordinary purchases? We can only guess. But there is no guessing. A minister bought a house last week for lots and lots of money. Two ministers are driving SUVS that only capitalists with ‘nuff’ money can buy.
Here is my contention. If on the basis of how he voted, we are investigating Charran, why are we not probing the lavish lifestyles of certain ministers? That minister that did his thing last week just off Sheriff Street, can he be accused of being the recipient of bribes?
If your answer is no, then how can you accuse a man of taking financial rewards because he voted against his own government? Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not know who among his party MPs would have voted against him to stop a no-deal Brexit. After the vote, when he found out, he demoted all of them.
So let’s put a question to Ramjattan. He is the man who instigated the Charrandass police inquiry, by publicly stating that he was told that Charran wanted to buy gold. But Charran has not bought any gold. The police are still to address the nation on what they have found incriminating about his gold purchase (except the evidence I can give to the police that he wanted to buy gold from me; my President’s Medal from UG).
Ramjattan will know now from this column about the property bought last week and the high-priced cars, which two ministers recently acquired. Therefore, I expect Ramjattan to go to the police after making contact with me. My cell number is 614-5927. I think he has it already.
