THE ULTIMATE BETRAYAL – UNPREDENTED PAY INCREASES, NAKED, BAREFACED LIES

Saturday , October 10 2015, Source

It is now official – the government has quietly published in the gazette the long suspected fantastic pay increases to its Ministers. After being exposed by the PPP and the Guyana Times, APNU+AFC denied that they had planned to give hefty pay increases to its Ministers in the 2015 budget. In fact, the Finance Minister was adamant that the PPP made up the story.   Well now the Minister of Finance has published the increases in the Official Gazette, knowing that the public has limited access to the Gazette and hoping it would have escaped the attention of the people. Like a thief operating in the dark of night and without notice, the APNU+AFC Government has acted like vampires sucking the blood out of the Guyanese people. Caught lying to the people and trying to subterfuge parliament and good governance, their chief spokesman arrogantly declared that they have nothing to apologize for.

They are afraid to publish the salaries and benefits of the President and the Attorney General. But Moses Nagamootoo will be getting at least $US9,000 per month in salaries. This does not include his gratuity which will amount to about another $US2,000 per month. When we add vacation pay, other benefits, such as maids, gardeners, security, drivers and entertainment etc. his remuneration will be in excess of $US15,000 per month. Junior Ministers will now earn in salaries and benefits in excess of $US6,000 per month.

Talk about super salaries! Wait until we discuss their pensions, then we will further be shocked. The truth is that this salary increases for Minister is obscene. Even more insensitive, arrogant and obscene is the excuse for it – to prevent the Ministers from corruption.

As the truth is revealed, the Guyanese people will be alarmed by the naked and barefaced lies that APNU+AFC has become used to. I will never be silent in the face of betrayal and naked and barefaced lies. The PPP will be what it has been for more than 60 years – the watchdog that stand with the Guyanese people. Like we exposed them on the betrayal and the lies they told rice farmers, we will expose them on their hypocrisy and shame related to their own salary increases.

While media houses like the Stabroek News and kaieteur News might choose to be silent, I know that there are fair and independent news sources still in existence in our country that will act fairly and fearlessly to inform the people of this shameless grabbing of the resources of our country, as APNU+AFC Ministers enrich themselves. I expect Guyana Times, the Mirror, Citizen’s Report and Express News to vigorously report the truth for the benefit of the Guyanese people and the world to see how shameless the APNU+AFC government is.

I do not expect to hear anything from the GTUC and from the GPSU. The workers these organizations claim to represent got less than 5% pay increases and only for less than six months. In other words, the government froze wages and salaries at the 2014 levels for January to June 2015. They had promised public servants and teachers 20% pay increases and then promptly backpedalled. They barefacedly explained to people that the country was bankrupt and that the PPP had stolen all the money from the treasury.

Where have they discovered these large amounts of money to give such unheard of huge pay increases? How are they able to pay their friends hundreds of millions to do audits and studies, such as the $40M to Christopher Ram for an audit? Where is the money coming from to do a COI into GUYSUCO and the Public Service? More than $80M will be paid for the GUYSUCO COI and they refuse to say how much the Public Service COI will cost. In any case, these charlatans that lied to people that they inherited a bankrupt country had enough money to present Guyana’s largest ever budget of $221B.

Will Transparency International find its voice? Will the Guyana Human Rights Organization wake up from its slumber? Will political commentators rediscover that they have a role to play in informing people of the truth? Will the ABC countries speak out?

For years Granger, Greenidge, Williams, Harmon, Nagamootoo, Ramjattan and Trotman and others from APNU+AFC spoke of the huge salaries of PPP Ministers. Never mind that my Permanent Secretaries always had bigger salaries than me when I was a Minister. While APNU+AFC lied to people about how large our salaries were, many of them were making millions and not paying their fair share of taxes. Let Basil Williams, Harmon, Trotman, Ramjattan and Nagamootoo and others release their tax information for the last ten years and let the people see how much taxes they paid.

Incidentally, Joe Harmon claims he cannot work for the salary PPP Ministers worked for. I remind him that we were committed to service and we worked hard and with integrity. I will at another time respond to the charges he made that the only reason we were able to work for the salary we had was that we were “thiefing all the time”.

But I challenge Joe Harmon, the honorable man that he is, to disclose to the public his income tax returns. Let us see what he paid in comparison to what he said he used to earn as an attorney. By the way, I do believe what he said about how much he earned as an attorney. But I bet that he lied to the GRA about what he earned and, therefore paid very little tax. This is a good example of “mouth open, story jump out”.

They promised during the election campaign in 2011 and 2015 and in the 10th Parliament that they will reduce salaries for the President and Ministers if they ever got in the government. Nagamootoo even claimed that he refused to take pay increases in Parliament when the PPP increased salaries for Ministers and MPs. He lied then. But here is his opportunity – demonstrate you are not a shameless charlatan. Do not take the pay increase.

The APNU+AFC charlatans had made people believed Jagdeo and Hinds were the highest paid President and Prime Minister in the world. Today, they have increased their salaries to way above Jagdeo’s and Hind’s. Junior Ministers in APNU+AFC are paid way above what PPP Senior Ministers use to make. If APNU+AFC was right that Jagdeo and Ramotar and Sam Hinds were the highest paid Heads of State, more than President Obama, then Granger and Nagamootoo are now the highest paid by far. From their own mouth, they demonstrate total depravity.

They had promised that they would reduce the pensions of government officials like the President’s. But by these salary increases, they have ensured almost doubling their pensions, compared to what PPP Ministers will receive. They do so at a time when they failed to keep their promises like doubling the old age pension, preserving the $10,000 per child school grant, reducing VAT, as they had sworn to do.

APNU+AFC, led by greedy, power-drunk old men, have betrayed and barefacedly lied to the Guyanese people, just like their predecessors in the People’s National Congress did between 1964 and 1992. They have firmly placed Guyana on the road to destruction. As we approach our 50th Independence Anniversary, Guyana is in the hands of people who are determined to grab power and everything for themselves. Guyana is in trouble.

Dr. Leslie Ramsammy