An aging dictatorship hits a huge iceberg
February 19, 2012 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
The Guyanese people have been so battered by the Jagdeo tyranny that they didn’t know or did not want to know if a policy or action or statement by the Jagdeo Government was above or below the law or had anything legal or lawful about it. For a majority of Guyanese, the regime just did what it wanted.
Guyanese did not know that a large percentage of governmental behaviour was occurring outside the law. After the crisis broke out at UG, I received in person and in e-mail form, countless questions asking me if it was true that the Government had nine representatives on the UG Council.
People would inquire; “Freddie who they are; you mean Gail Teixeira is on UG Council; how Bibi Shadick reach deh?” Guyanese just don’t know that so many policies over the last fifteen years of the PPP Government were either in violation of the law and/or the Constitution.
It had to happen this way because the ruling party controlled both branches of government – Executive and Legislature. The dictatorship finally ran aground last Thursday evening. Unaware that he was using Freudian language, Finance Minister Ashni Singh said the Government was “in uncharted waters.” Singh knew his Bismarck was sinking hence his reference to water. It is up to the AFC and APNU to make sure the Juggernaut finds a resting place at the bottom of the ocean.
What happened in Parliament last Thursday evening is that the Guyanese people were told that from 2012, they will be informed of what is responsible, legal, accountable and transparent behaviour in government and when these criteria are not met, they will stop such reprehensible conduct from the Executive Branch.
If the 10th Parliament could consistently deny the Executive the latitude to break the laws of the land, what is slowly going to happen is that our political culture will change in the sense that the citizenry will come to appreciate the legal foundation upon which government rests.
This is something Barbados has never shifted from. Barbados is a tiny island with a small population, but British political values with its accompanying meticulous adherence to the rule of law is embedded in the psyche of the Barbadian nation. From the high school student up, it is known that a politician cannot be a Permanent Secretary in the civil service. Bajans won’t accept that. In 1996, a then student of mine at UG, (the daughter of whom you would not believe) told me that her father advised her to leave Guyana after she was finished with UG because Guyana will always be troubled.
What he didn’t tell her was that his party had no intention of playing even a faint role in transforming the troubled landscape, but was prepared to participate in its destruction. If after 20 years in power, we have a ruling party that violates the country’s laws on a daily basis, treats the Constitution with scant regard, shows contempt for moral foundations, alienates ethnic constituencies, and is willing to strangulate the private media, then his advice to his daughter was philosophical.
The question is; are we on the road to reclamation of the rule of law and moral authority? The Guyanese people will learn what legal government is if we have more of what happened in Parliament last Thursday evening. What took place there found prominence on the front pages of the daily newspapers and made the leads in the television newscasts. It was revealed that moneys were improperly spent; moneys were drawn down without adherence to particular laws. As the Parliament forces the Executive Branch of Government to uphold the law, the average citizen over a period of time will reclaim his sense of what is legal and what is illegal in the exercise of power.
The apogee of this parliamentary avenue will be the commencement of the official commission of inquiry. In this forum we will finally know who stole what, who shared in the loot, and who trampled upon the laws of Guyana. Should that happen, it will shake and galvanize the people of this tragic land. But its priceless value will be in the recapturing of that spirit long gone from Guyanese – the right to be indignant and to show that revulsion by openly rejecting depraved governance.
Right now, the most troubled man in Guyana is the Finance Minister. He must be wildly taking things out of his 2012 budget at the moment. How will he get moneys to be passed for the Chronicle, NCN, UG and other places, without conceding that those places are overflowing with illegal behaviour?
February 19, 2012 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
The Guyanese people have been so battered by the Jagdeo tyranny that they didn’t know or did not want to know if a policy or action or statement by the Jagdeo Government was above or below the law or had anything legal or lawful about it. For a majority of Guyanese, the regime just did what it wanted.
Guyanese did not know that a large percentage of governmental behaviour was occurring outside the law. After the crisis broke out at UG, I received in person and in e-mail form, countless questions asking me if it was true that the Government had nine representatives on the UG Council.
People would inquire; “Freddie who they are; you mean Gail Teixeira is on UG Council; how Bibi Shadick reach deh?” Guyanese just don’t know that so many policies over the last fifteen years of the PPP Government were either in violation of the law and/or the Constitution.
It had to happen this way because the ruling party controlled both branches of government – Executive and Legislature. The dictatorship finally ran aground last Thursday evening. Unaware that he was using Freudian language, Finance Minister Ashni Singh said the Government was “in uncharted waters.” Singh knew his Bismarck was sinking hence his reference to water. It is up to the AFC and APNU to make sure the Juggernaut finds a resting place at the bottom of the ocean.
What happened in Parliament last Thursday evening is that the Guyanese people were told that from 2012, they will be informed of what is responsible, legal, accountable and transparent behaviour in government and when these criteria are not met, they will stop such reprehensible conduct from the Executive Branch.
If the 10th Parliament could consistently deny the Executive the latitude to break the laws of the land, what is slowly going to happen is that our political culture will change in the sense that the citizenry will come to appreciate the legal foundation upon which government rests.
This is something Barbados has never shifted from. Barbados is a tiny island with a small population, but British political values with its accompanying meticulous adherence to the rule of law is embedded in the psyche of the Barbadian nation. From the high school student up, it is known that a politician cannot be a Permanent Secretary in the civil service. Bajans won’t accept that. In 1996, a then student of mine at UG, (the daughter of whom you would not believe) told me that her father advised her to leave Guyana after she was finished with UG because Guyana will always be troubled.
What he didn’t tell her was that his party had no intention of playing even a faint role in transforming the troubled landscape, but was prepared to participate in its destruction. If after 20 years in power, we have a ruling party that violates the country’s laws on a daily basis, treats the Constitution with scant regard, shows contempt for moral foundations, alienates ethnic constituencies, and is willing to strangulate the private media, then his advice to his daughter was philosophical.
The question is; are we on the road to reclamation of the rule of law and moral authority? The Guyanese people will learn what legal government is if we have more of what happened in Parliament last Thursday evening. What took place there found prominence on the front pages of the daily newspapers and made the leads in the television newscasts. It was revealed that moneys were improperly spent; moneys were drawn down without adherence to particular laws. As the Parliament forces the Executive Branch of Government to uphold the law, the average citizen over a period of time will reclaim his sense of what is legal and what is illegal in the exercise of power.
The apogee of this parliamentary avenue will be the commencement of the official commission of inquiry. In this forum we will finally know who stole what, who shared in the loot, and who trampled upon the laws of Guyana. Should that happen, it will shake and galvanize the people of this tragic land. But its priceless value will be in the recapturing of that spirit long gone from Guyanese – the right to be indignant and to show that revulsion by openly rejecting depraved governance.
Right now, the most troubled man in Guyana is the Finance Minister. He must be wildly taking things out of his 2012 budget at the moment. How will he get moneys to be passed for the Chronicle, NCN, UG and other places, without conceding that those places are overflowing with illegal behaviour?
