By Dr Arif Bulkan

Arif Bulkan lectures in the Faculty of Law at the University of the West Indies

Under Guyana’s laws, Minister of Health Bheri Ramsaran’s attack on Sherlina Nageer at the Whim Magistrate’s Court, which included telling her to ‘F- off’, calling her a “little piece of shit” and threatening to have her stripped, qualifies as harassment if it occurred in the context of persons who are associated with each other. Harassment is defined by the Domestic Violence Act as including ‘persistent verbal abuse’ and ‘threats of physical violence’. It is possible as well that Ramsaran’s threats qualify as criminal under both the common law and, at a minimum, our summary offences legislation. In other words, his conduct was clearly unlawful. While the President belatedly issued a statement, the sincerity of the reaction of the ruling party is questionable given its disgraceful view that the “opposition media” is blowing the matter out of proportion and the fact that Ramsaran remains in office. Worse, the attempts of various PPP officials who have commented on the incident to shift responsibility for it onto the victim, the Opposition, or the media – anyone but the offender himself – reveal not just insincerity but more importantly their collective moral degeneracy and utter contempt for the people. When the Minister told Ms. Nageer to ‘F- off’ he was simply replaying a familiar narrative, one that he and his colleagues have observed for years. One merely has to situate Ramsaran’s behaviour in its wider context to appreciate the sobering truth of this assertion.

First of all, Ramsaran’s outburst is faithful to the example set by former President Jagdeo, whose trademark vulgarity was never far beneath the surface. Jagdeo has resurfaced in this campaign, still lacking in decorum, playing to the presumed base instincts of his constituents, as inflammatory as ever. Thus when President Ramotar became frustrated with a member of the audience at a public meeting in Region 9, it is no accident that he referenced his predecessor, saying “If [Jagdeo] been hey, he mighta slap yuh cause yuh stupid.” Similar vulgarity was acted out for the diplomatic community by Priya Manickchand, whose own party celebrated her rant by proudly describing it as a “feral blast” – apparently unaware that the analogy was to the behaviour of a wild animal. Nothing of course eclipses the behaviour of Anil Nandlall, ironically the country’s supreme law officer, who in a taped recording was heard insistently pimping for his uncle, hinting at personal financial impropriety, and making thinly veiled threats of weapons being used against Kaieteur News offices. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights responded by issuing Precautionary Measures, while almost in unison civil society including the Bar Association called for Nandlall’s removal. Despite all this Nandlall remains in office.

As if the threat of physical and sexualised violence against Ms Nageer were not enough, Ramsaran’s subsequent explanation that he was provoked is appalling. All Ms. Nageer was doing was asking some hard questions, and absolutely nothing that transpired during that conversation excuses the Minister’s reaction. The feeble resort to accusations of provocation is doubly offensive because it amounts to blaming the victim. The latter is a familiar strategy of male offenders, who by denying their role seek to evade responsibility for their actions, in the process erasing the harm committed. Caribbean feminist scholars Halimah DeShong and Tonya Haynes (2015) characterise the invocation of provocation in this context as a form of misogyny; co-opted by the State, provocation becomes highly contradictory since it ‘re-inscribes rather than challenges masculinist assumptions about gender which buttress rather than challenge’ violence against women. These considerations should be uppermost in the minds of sensitive policy-makers in Guyana, where physical and sexual violence against women and girls has been at epidemic proportions for a very long time. Open any newspaper on any day of the week and one is guaranteed to see a story about a woman or girl child raped, beaten, burnt, chopped, mutilated or otherwise violated at the hands of some man in her life.

A study by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) of sexual violence cases in Guyana between 2000 and 2004 revealed that the problem of violence against women is escalating. The statistics for the period surveyed paint a shocking picture of complete systemic failure: over the 5-year period there were 647 reports of rape but only 9 convictions, which translates to a 1.4% conviction rate. The GHRA report revealed that sexual violence against women increased steadily, but only 3% of all complaints made it to trial. In July 2012 the Committee on the Elimination against Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) expressed concern in its Concluding Observations for “the high prevalence of violence against women in [Guyana], in particular domestic and sexual violence, which is culturally accepted and in many cases remains underreported. The Committee is further concerned that there is only one centre in the country providing services to victims of violence…”

In the GHRA Report, the authors conclude with the interesting observation that the deficiencies in the justice system that contribute to this problem “pale in comparison to the challenge posed by the unreconstructed chauvinism of the legal culture in Guyana”. It is this context that renders Ramsaran’s explanation of provocation so perverse. It plays into that chauvinistic environment and validates, even encourages, the horrific violence to which women and girls are routinely subjected. That this explanation would be echoed by Freedom House in defence of Ramsaran who casually talked about slapping a woman for fun is an indication of the PPP’s ignorance of the scale of the problem and their disregard for women.

In actuality, Ms. Nageer’s questioning was an expression of her constitutionally guaranteed rights. As she pointed out to the Minister at Whim, Guyana has an abysmal maternal mortality rate, the second highest in the Caribbean and Americas region and for which the CEDAW committee expressed concern in its July 2012 concluding observations. In her column of April 24, Ms Nageer followed up with considerable detail regarding what she headlined, “the complicity of the Ministry of Health in medical malpractice”. Ms. Nageer, who holds a Masters in Public Health and is therefore an informed analyst of this sector, listed a long series of abuses including numerous suspicious deaths in the public health facilities of the country, inadequate and incompetent care, inadequately trained health care workers, high rates of absenteeism, lack of running water, medication and supplies, the use of expired medication and overcrowding in hospitals.

In researching this column I interviewed a few persons, some very senior, in the public health system – and everything I learnt corroborated what Ms Nageer exposed. I was intrigued to discover, however, that at the root of the disaster that is the public health system is its underfinancing – for example, the public hospital is extremely overcrowded. The wards cannot accommodate the sheer numbers of patients, who are kept in the ER for days until space becomes available. The entire place could do with a good cleaning. Supplies are scarce. Nurses are underpaid, which in turn leads to other problems like lack of motivation, poor care, and a high rate of absenteeism. All this contributes to the unacceptably high mortality rate, explaining why former President Jagdeo didn’t want to go there even for a bout of diarrhoea.

Given that increased (or more rational) spending on Health could improve the system, it is impossible to understand or justify the government’s procurement practices in this sector. Since 1999 government has engaged in sole or restrictive sourcing of pharmaceutical drugs. The beneficiary of this largesse is New GPC, a company owned by former President Jagdeo’s friend Bobby Ramroop. In the intervening 16 years, billions of dollars have been paid to Ramroop for drugs, violating all best practices. The irrationality of sole sourcing of any product is that the purchaser does not know if the price paid is competitive – the prudent approach would be to shop around by inviting tenders. By sole-sourcing from New GPC the government pays whatever price is quoted, in the process side-lining all other suppliers.

In a brilliant piece of investigative journalism, Kaieteur News (KN) checked up on the prices charged by New GPC after it was forced to disclose its invoices during a trial in New York. In one contract, New GPC charged the government/taxpayers $2,647.00 for one tube of Ketoconazole cream. Multiplied by 8212 tubes supplied, we paid Ramroop $21.7 million for this one item alone. KN did some research and was able to source this cream from India at $80.00 per tube – multiplied by 8212, the total cost to the taxpayers if Glen Lall had supplied the government would have been $656,960 instead of $21.7m. In other words, New GPC apparently overcharged the government by $21 million dollars for just one item.

Consider now that such procurement has been going on for 16 years, and imagine how much the taxpayers may have overpaid for drugs – for the item checked by KN cannot be the only instance of overpayment. Is it moral that the PPP virtually gifts $21 million extra for the supply of cream to the Ramroops, and God knows how much more, while nurses are underpaid, the hospital is overcrowded, health care workers are inadequately trained and mothers and children continue to die? In fact, indicating the government’s complete lack of interest in fiscal prudence and its callous disregard for the public health sector, Cabinet just last week approved contracts totalling $2.6 billion for the purchase of drugs from New GPC.

One can therefore empathise with the outrage she felt when on Monday morning Ms. Nageer saw the Minister of Health on a campaign jaunt instead of tending to the responsibilities of his portfolio. The principal objective of our political system, according to Article 13 of the Constitution, is to provide for ‘inclusionary democracy’, which is spelt out as ‘providing increasing opportunities for the participation of citizens… in the management and decision-making processes of the State, with particular emphasis on those areas of decision-making that directly affect their well-being.’ The thrust of the constitutional reforms inaugurated by this very administration was to enhance the framework for rights’ protection and create people-centred governance. The Minister’s refusal to engage with Ms Nageer and his unconcealed indignation at having to answer to a woman, calls into question the sincerity of those constitutional reforms and the PPP’s commitment to accountability and good governance.

In a real democracy, officials of state are accountable to the electorate and obliged to answer questions. The bedrock of the Westminster system we inherited is that of responsible government, part of which entails taking responsibility for mistakes. This UK tradition, which can be traced to the 1934 Crichel Down affair, applies even where the line Minister may not be personally responsible. It is observed by decent politicians or governments everywhere, in and outside of the Commonwealth. Just last year the US Secretary for Health and Human Services resigned because of the bungled rollout of Obamacare online, even though she was not directly involved in the technical details. In neighbouring Trinidad, more than 20 Ministers under the present administration have been forced to relinquish their seats, and a good many for financial or other scandals involving the law. Although none was convicted at the time of resigning, in securing their removal the Prime Minister explained her anxiety was to shield a high office of state from disrepute.

By contrast, members of this government have been linked to vigilantes, openly associated with convicted criminals, have had their US visa revoked, and have casually discussed the use of weapons, but not one has had the decency to resign in spite of the disrepute caused to their office. This occurs simply because the PPP does not believe it is accountable to the people. For decades the PPP/C has been telling Guyanese to F- off, apparently secure in their belief that they own their supporters and that ethnic solidarity compels an Indo-majority to meekly accept the most debased and corrupt government without complaint.