Responding to a political grasshopper
Dear Editor,
Mr Kit Nascimento has once more lived up to his reputation of defending any cause for a fee. On Thursday, he was the moderator at a press conference hosted by Winston Brassington on the controversial Marriott hotel.
Perhaps this position proved to be too heady for him to appreciate what he was really supposed to do. The fact that there were seven reporters from Kaieteur News could in no way “monopolise the press conference to the exclusion of other media.” “It was my determination not to allow it.”
Let it be clear that the very professional Nascimento then left his seat to remind Stabroek News of the said press conference. We did not hear the conversation but we believe that Stabroek News told him something dirty because no reporter turned up.
For starters, it is the moderator who determines who asks questions. Kaieteur News could have had 100 reporters at the conference. If Kit Nascimento had so decided then none could have asked a question without his approval.
But so engrossed was Nascimento with being a moderator at Brassington’s press conference that he claims that he took a decision to limit each reporter. That was an unnecessary decision because Kit was in the position of God at the press conference.
The truth is that Kaieteur News has been a strong critic of the Marriott project, much to Winston Brassington’s chagrin.
It did not escape notice and the recording would show that as soon as a reporter identified himself as being a staff member of Kaieteur News Brassington looked at Nascimento.
Vintage Nascimento then does what he was once good at. He links me to the reporters attached to Kaieteur News. I am also the Editor-in-Chief of Prime News and I attend press conferences in that capacity. Anyone who tuned in to Prime News would have seen two stories, voiced by me, on the press conference. But Nascimento writes that I led the reporters to pack into the press conference of press briefing. He claims that I was there as a Kaieteur News reporter. I blame his poor eyesight and memory since I introduced myself as a Prime News reporter.
A week earlier Nascimento was the moderator at a press conference hosted by BK International to lambaste Works Minister , Robeson Benn. He was as critical of the government’s accusation of a stone shortage as he was of the criticisms against the Marriott.
This was the Nascimento who proclaimed that Minister Benn should explain the stone shortage allegation but who supported Brassington who found any question about money and expenditure to be confidential. Poor Robeson Benn did not have Nascimento to tell him to say that the report on the stone was confidential.
Nascimento then becomes a critic of Kaieteur News and of me more than anything else. He claims that it pains him that “Harris, hiding behind the thinly disguised pseudo name ‘Dem boys seh’. I never had to hide. In fact, at one time my name was attached to the column.
But what gets Nascimento going is the fact that having been paid by Brassington, he must attack the column that attacks Brazzy almost daily.
Should Kaieteur News pay Nascimento to moderate a forum on the Marriott, the very Nascimento will crucify Winston Brassington. And it is all for a few dollars. He cussed out the PPP until Bharrat Jagdeo invited him over. He got into bed with the PPP.
When BK paid him he jumped into bed against the PPP. He is the type of person they would call a soup drinker. I am steadfast in my beliefs and in my loyalty.
Adam Harris