Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality

Dear Editor,
It was Lord Acton who said “Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.”  We were reminded of these words when we read the GINA press release captioned “Opposition motion to revise former president’s bill, an insult – Finance Minister”.  An insult to whom may we ask?
Clearly the Minister was not referring to the $10,000 per month insult that eligible mothers of Plastic City will collect if they retire today?
It has certainly not escaped our notice that this “affront” that Dr. Singh is alluding to, will result in former Presidents receiving pension and benefits exceeding $3,000,000 a month vs. $10,000 a month for members of the working class. Yes it is an affront that the poor can get so little while the Minister’s former boss can get so much notwithstanding that his personal wealth can take care of him for many lifetimes.
How can a former Guyanese scholar achieve such negative notoriety by defending such an abomination?  Why has his sense of fair play and decency abandoned him at this time of national need? Where is his sense of loyalty to his ancestors and elders resulting in such immoral counsel from the Minister?
It is unfortunate that the majority opposition have been so unkind to the mothers of Guyana to even offer $5,000 per month to former Presidents, when they already enjoy a Cadillac lifestyle on the sweat of the poor man.
When the Berbician ancestors of Dr Singh were toiling in the sun under the white man, was it their dream to feed a corrupt cabal at the expense of the working poor?  Certainly not!
But to add insult to injury, Dr. Singh’s vexatious concern of whom is natural born and whom is adopted, it is nothing but a flight to wonderland.  Why would a senior Executive of the Jagdeo / Ramotar cabal spend executive time on such semantics and verbal fluff?  Does he not have proper work to do?  The Minister ought to pay more attention to crafting a better budget for the poor and the working class rather than one that is usually stuffed with billions for the economic sponsors of the corrupt players in the Jagdeo / Ramotar cabal.
Let us make it immaculately clear to Dr Singh, it is an national scandal and disgrace that a former working class party supports such an anti-working class legislation to provide among other financial benefits – a battalion of security personnel around one man and a motorcade of luxury vehicles for one man that can run into tens of millions of dollars a year on the backs of poor people, like the mothers of Plastic City.
So this unsolicited view from the Minister of a “manufactured controversy” is furthest from the truth.  This Presidential Pensions & Benefits Package is a real controversy.  It is this controversy that drove so many thousands of former PPP supporters away from that party in the 2011 elections. If the PPP political intelligence was functional, it would have clearly felt the political vibrations from the mothers of Guyana who are absolutely clear in their mind that because of this uncaring and corrupt Jagdeo / Ramotar cabal, 20 years from now they will still be poor, living below the poverty line while the PPP fat cats will still have billions pinched from illegitimate economic transactions, to live on.
Only if policy makers in the Jagdeo / Ramotar cabal can allow the truth to seep into their cerebral matter for one second, they would realize that unless they desist from all these corrupt laws, they will fail politically.  Remember that Investment Law that was amended retroactively to regularize an illegality to pander to one of their economic sponsors (the Sanata / GPC deal)?  We do!
The Minister should know better than to accept the role as a callow propagandist for unschooled individuals.  Unlike some of these yard fowls, the Minister did not procure his PHD from Russia, India or the UK under very questionable circumstances.
In such a political condition where the gifted become slaves to the daft, the people will have to take direct action by way of the ballot box to bury these corrupt group of imbeciles into the history books where they belong.
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh