General Secretary Coretta Mc Donald

November 18 ,2020

Source

Following positive COVID-19 tests among some teachers and students, the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) has called on the Ministry of Education to close schools in Bartica for 14 days to allow for isolation and quarantine where needed.

The ministry last week reopened schools across the country for in-class lessons for CXC-level students.  

The GTU yesterday released a video statement urging the ministry to “act wisely” as it concerns the resumption of face-to-face interactions at the schools in Bartica and those with dorms across the country where positive COVID-19 cases have been recorded.

General Secretary Coretta Mc Donald told this newspaper that the union is requesting that the schools be closed until there is certainty that infected persons are not among those who are in classes.

In its statement, the union said that it is deeply concerned about the situation in Bartica, where teachers and students at two main secondary schools have tested positive for the virus since the re-opening of school.

It added that it is aware that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education have tested the students but that given the possibility that these students may have been around their families and other students, all schools should be closed for 14 days to facilitate isolation and quarantining as well as needed sanitisation.

“When we don’t do what we have to do, then other sectors are going to feel the brunt of it. When our students and our parents and our teachers are flooding the health centres, do we have the capacity to take that off?” McDonald in an invited comment to this newspaper. “All we are saying is that we need to be wise and act that way. Make wise decisions so that we won’t have to say “we are sorry” or “if we had known” or “if we had done this” or “we should not have done that,” she said.

McDonald added that the GTU is asking for all dorm schools to be closed and schools have contact tracing done along with further testing and close monitoring of the situation. She also noted that non-dorm schools may also have possible cases. In these instances, she said that if schools are open then there needs to be proper systems in place and if students are testing positive then schools should be closed, sanitised and have persons get tested before face-to-face classes are resumed.

Also concerned about intermingling, McDonald said that while some persons are isolated, there are other who might have been in contact with the positive cases but are not showing signs or symptoms.

Education Minister Priya Manickchand, who yesterday announced that teachers and students from two schools in Region Seven have tested positive for COVID-19, said that schools have been following stringent guidelines advised by the Ministry of Health.

In a Facebook post, Manickchand confirmed that on Monday evening her ministry was informed of five teachers, two ancillary staff and six students in Region Seven testing positive for the virus.

Manickchand told this newspaper that when the dorm-resident students arrived, they were tested and while there was a “small window” where persons could have intermingled with each other, they were constantly reminded not to. She further said that persons are expected to follow protocols to ensure they are not being infected.  Manickchand added that as the batches of students arrived, they were not allowed to intermingle in order to ensure each batch was properly catered for.

Manickchand then said that the union is asking for something that is not medically required because if persons test positive the protocol is to have those persons isolate while contact tracing and quarantining of persons who were in contact with them is done. She said that the Health Ministry has not advised that an entire building be shut down.

Meanwhile, Manickchand yesterday also announced that teachers and students in Region Nine received negative results after testing. They were tested after rapid antibody tests yielded positive results.  

The total number of dorm-resident students who have tested positive for COVID-19 stands at 18. Testing commenced last week and is expected to continue until all students who attend dormitory schools have been tested.

November 30 ,2020

Source

File photo: Marcus Brian Bisram (centre)

Armed bandits just after 8 last night invaded the home of former murder accused, Marcus Brian Bisram, located at Number 70 Village, Corentyne, and carted off a large sum of cash and jewellery.

Based on information gathered, five armed bandits entered the premises and robbed Bisram of over $5M in cash and jewellery.

Stabroek News was reliably informed that while no-one was seriously injured some persons sustained lashes with a cutlass from the bandits.

Commander of Region Six, Jairam Ramlakhan, when contacted around 9.22 pm, said, that he could not confirm anything, since he had not received any information from his ranks at that time.

Up to press time last evening, investigators remained on the scene.

James Bond

November 30 ,2020

Source

The US$1M payment made to prominent PNCR member James Bond for leased NICIL  lands at Peters Hall, East Bank Demerara was never flagged by the city commercial bank that undertook the transaction, Bank of Guyana sources say.

The Bank of Guyana learned of the transaction, which occurred in October of 2019, through press reports, sources told Stabroek News.

Guyana’s Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) is currently analyzing files sent to it from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on the land deals to determine if laws were transgressed, sources close to that investigation also told this newspaper.

“The file has been passed by the CID for SOCU to conduct the money laundering aspect of the investigations. In this regard, court orders have been applied for and obtained, in relation to all the directors of ARKEN, and James Bond and served on the bank requesting bank account information among other things,” a SOCU source said.

The SOCU source informed that “nothing came to SOCU from FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit) prior to now” on the said transaction.

When FIU Head Matthew Langevine was contacted yesterday, he told this newspaper that the law of this country prohibits his agency from speaking publicly on active investigations. “We can’t, according to law,” he said.

However, he said that his agency shares information with SOCU and has been doing so since its creation as they both collaborate on active investigations.

And with daily complaints by citizens of the red tape and questioning they endure over small sums at commercial banks, Attorney General Anil Nandall says he sees negligence in how the large transaction was handled.

“In my view, there was negligence by the operators in the AML/CFT (Anti-Money Laundering/ Countering the Financing of Terrorism) machinery to not have red-flagged that transaction,” Nandlall told Stabroek News yesterday when contacted.

Flummoxed

As the Minister who holds responsibility for AML /CFT oversight, Nandlall says that he was flummoxed over how the transaction did not trigger a single red flag.

He said that as the transaction occurred since 2019 while the APNU+AFC was in government, the way that the AML/ CFT is  structured he could not give an insight into transactions during that period.

“I would not be able to explain or account for what transpired. However, having worked closely in establishing Guyana’s AML/CFT machinery, the way it is structured and the manner in which it ought to function, that transaction should have been flagged as a suspicious transaction by the respective bank and that bank ought to have reported it to its supervisory authority which is the Central Bank. The Central Bank in turn had a duty to transmit that report to the FIU for investigations,” he said.

He continued, “The FIU then determines if to send to SOCU which is the investigative arm of the structure. The reason why the transaction should have been flagged would have been because of the sums of monies involved and it could not have been a regular type of transaction, having regard to previous transactions done by that customer. That is unless that customer regularly receives such large amounts in their account. In my view there was negligence by the operators in the AML/CFT machinery; to not have red- flagged that transaction,” he added.

Nandlall said that there seemed to be a lack of communication between the operators of the AML/CFT machinery here and “that by itself warrants investigation”.

After a 72-hour stay in the lockups, Bond was on Friday released from police custody after being questioned on the award of state lands at Peters Hall. He is on $200,000 station bail.

One of Bond’s attorneys, Patrice Henry, told Stabroek News that his client is required report to the Criminal Investigation Department Headquarters, at Eve Leary, this  morning. Henry said there has been no indication of charges but noted that the investigation is still ongoing.

Bond is alleged to have been a key financial beneficiary of the deals which did not comply with the traditional terms of such land leases.

Bond has declined to speak to Stabroek News on these matters saying that he will not be speaking to the press. “I am not going to speak to the press” he had told this newspaper three weeks ago. Asked then who would he be speaking to, he replied, “The court, the police, SOCU”.

The transaction which saw the monies deposited into Bond’s account pertains to a Caribbean joint-venture for a chemical storage facility between GLASS Holdings and Trinidadian Lennox Petroleum. Bond, it is alleged,  was the recipient of some US$952,800 for the sale of lease rights for the Peters Hall lands.

In the case of Arken Group Inc., located at 34 Third Street, Alberttown, it was leased 20.8 acres in four plots by National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL); three at 5.0 acres and the other at 5.8 acres. The lands were not advertised and as such there was no Board or Cabinet approval of the deal. The date of execution of the lease was stated as 9th May 2018 and the company agreed to a 20-year lease.

The annual cost for the lease was US$16,224. For the 20-year period, it would mean that the company would have been required to pay US$324,480.

No restrictions applied and the business sold its leasehold rights of 10 acres to GLASS Holdings Inc., on October 10th 2019 for $200 million. GLASS Holdings paid the sum in two installments of US$195,000 and US$757,000 and according to the terms of their agreement with ARKEN, was given an irrevocable Power of Attorney. They were required to continue payments and meet the terms of the lease.

However, according to Managing Director of GLASS Holdings Inc., Glenn Low-A-Chee, when he went to pay his lease fee he was shocked to learn that the deal had come under scrutiny.

“The Lease Agreement and all documents and procedures to effect the transfer of the Leasehold/ Lessee rights from ARKEN to GLASS Holdings were prepared and processed in compliance with the lease (number provided) and the general rules governing the lease transfer,” Low-A-Chee wrote to new NICIL Chairman Radha Krishna Sharma, as he enquired about the purchase of the lease.

“Pending the completion of the documentation process, we had visited NICIL in early March and again in August 2020 in an attempt to pay our lease fees as the new Lessee and we were advised by Mr. Winston Mingo, Accounts Receivable Clerk in the Accounts Department, NICIL, that there was a pending jurisdictional/ restructuring issue between NICIL and Ministry of Business regarding the collection of lease fees, and as such our payment was not accepted/processed. We were advised to follow up at a later date regarding the payments,” he explained to Sharma.

The company had said that it would make a statement on the deal but to date has not done so.

November 30 ,2020

Source

With the entry of each new government into office the electorate hears the same recitations about development. And by the time they leave office that development is still on hold. Nowadays voters are fairly cynical about their politicians, believing that most of them seek power in order to benefit themselves rather than the nation, a view which has probably become even more entrenched following the display of bad faith on the part of the AFC. Guyana’s tragedy is that voting patterns have an ethnic character, although it would not be so tragic if regular changes of government were possible. But in this country demographics is key.

As it is many electors probably see little difference in terms of integrity between the politicians of one side and those of the other. What guides their hand to mark the X on the ballot paper will either be ethnic considerations or, in a minority of cases, tactical ones.  And the politicians for whom they vote act accordingly. They see their first obligation as being to their ethnic constituencies, and by extension regard it as their function to appoint loyalists to key positions.

As for their tendency to use power to look after their own interests, it is not that they do not seek to place the nation on the path of development; it is rather that they believe that self-enhancement is not incompatible with this goal. This is despite the fact that nearly thirty years after our first free and fair elections in a long time, it should have been apparent to them that any such assumption had no evidence to support it.  Self-interested motives, however, are hard to override.

This time around our present occupants of the corridors of power probably think that things will be different, because with the anticipated oil bonanza, there will soon be enough money to go around to profit everyone and silence all critics in the process. Certainly Mr David Granger thought so too, which is one reason why he clung so desperately to power for so long.  The Guyanese people, however, are not necessarily persuaded. They know all about impoverished nations which struck oil, and whose elites became obscenely wealthy while the poor remained wretchedly poor.

For those who seek change, the answer lies in a radical rewriting of the constitution. That, however, is not so easily accomplished. In the first place, as is often recognised by reformers, incumbents in office have no interest in reducing their own power and control. They will be amenable to any amendment they perceive as being in their interest, but after that it would be a question of tinkering and minor concessions.

There is something else too which inhibits any move towards real change, and that is the political culture of our two major parties, which, it might be noted, also contaminated the only truly viable third party this country ever produced. The PPP and the PNC have a historically antagonistic relationship, which for all of that is symbiotic at some level. What is wrong in the nation is explained in terms of the other, so the previous PPP/C administration blamed its own shortcomings on the state in which the ‘dictatorship’ (as it called it) had left the country. This was still being advanced as an argument many years after it had acceded to office.

The Granger government was no less condemnatory of its predecessor, bringing court actions against some former officials in relation to the Pradoville 2 housing scheme.  That both governments have been guilty of corruption there is little doubt, whether that comes to light or not, and traditionally for the most part what are probably the most egregious cases haven’t. But our parties are formed of Cyclopes – members who see with only one eye. Wrong is what is committed by the other side, not by their own.

So vindictiveness is ingrained in the political psyche, and as mentioned earlier, when a new government comes in, officials appointed by the previous one are turfed out willy-nilly, whatever their gifts, as the case of Dr Vincent Adams in particular illustrates. In a country which suffers so much from the brain drain, and which lacks a critical mass of competent people, this is no way to pursue development. With a few notable exceptions, sycophancy and ability do not go together.  And what the previous PPP/C government demonstrated was that it had no feel for talent.

That aside, it might be observed that no nation can develop which does not have a level of continuity from one administration to the next, at least where certain fundamental policies are concerned. Here, however, every government which comes in seems to want to start from scratch; there is no building on what has gone before and so development is inhibited. It is not as if the APNU+AFC administration did any better on the continuity front or in terms of retaining any proven competent officials in critical posts either.  But then Mr Granger  introduced an additional aberrant element into the PNC political equation: the military factor.  He seemed to believe that he could run the state as the army was run, and so he appointed any number of inexperienced, ill-suited ex-military personnel to critical posts with predictable results. It was not even as if he was a populist; he hardly made himself available to the public except on official occasions and for the celebration of religious anniversary events.  Even now, as the leader of the main opposition party, he is still virtually incommunicado.

The only thing his modus operandi in office and his actions last year and this have achieved is the precipitous decline of the PNC as a political entity, and his chosen successor, Mr Joseph Harmon, who also lacks political skills, will not be the one to revive it. The PPP is probably quite happy that it is witnessing what it believes could be the demise of its old opponent, which now appears to lack the power to put real pressure on it, despite the fact that the ruling party’s overall majority in Parliament is only one seat.

It should be careful, however, about premature rejoicing. The ethnic political nexus is so entrenched, that eventually someone will appear to speak for the African constituency, whether or not within the context of the old PNC. The fact that the party now lacks spokespersons of genuine experience and ability such as Mr Carl Greenidge, does not mean that this will remain the case indefinitely. The African constituency in this latest chapter of an old story is not suddenly going to become the new supporters of the present government, even if that government thinks they can be bought off with oil money.

And even if one thought that President Irfaan Ali was genuine in his patter about inclusiveness and the like, he is a product of Freedom House, which has a long-established system and some old political hands. It was founded in the days when the PPP was a Marxist-Leninist party (its constitution still is) and while most of its members probably no longer adhere to those views, the system still retains its hold.  In short it is not geared for making the kind of compromises constitutional reform and inclusiveness would require.

It used to be thought that the first step to stabilising the country and edging it towards developmental mode, was to encourage the PNC to come within the democratic framework. In 1992 Desmond Hoyte appeared to be nosing it in that direction, and in 2011, that seemed to have been achieved. Mr Granger then sabotaged the achievement, and the PNC is now back to square one, finding itself at the lowest ebb in its history. This is not good for the country either. A democracy needs a viable opposition whose bona fides are trusted.

As for the PPP, it has always had a simplistic definition of democracy, amounting only to the holding of national elections.  Once in office, then Freedom House thinking takes hold.  As it is, Parliament has not met for nearly three months, and the public is being informed there will be no local government elections next year, when they fall due, because Gecom would first have to be reformed.  This is nonsense, apart from reflecting an undemocratic spirit. It may take a good while before the PNC addresses its problems, but the PPP can address some of its own now. Most of all it should remind itself that history shows in this country that development cannot be achieved through the vehicle of party autocracy.

Millions of dollars are unaccounted for from the Sustainable Livelihood and Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) Initiative, which was rolled out under the previous government, Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton announced on Friday.

Addressing a press conference on Friday at his ministry’s boardroom, Hamilton said that in Regions Nine and Ten, there is no evidence of projects on which money has been spent.

“What we have seen is there are shepherds but no sheep… so millions of dollars are unaccounted for,” the minister lamented.

November 28 ,2020

Source

-as Public Accounts Committee set to meet next week

Designated Chair of the Public Accounts Commit-tee (PAC) David Patterson yesterday signalled his intention to request special audits of the COVID-19 relief grant programme and the single-source procurement of 44 tractors by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).

During a virtual press conference held by the Alliance for Change (AFC) yesterday, Patterson repeated the call for Speaker Manzoor Nadir to convene all standing and select committees in particular the PAC.

This committee, which last met on August 6, 2018, is a full three and a half years behind in its examination of the public accounts as detailed in the various Auditor General’s Reports, the opposition parliamentarian lamented.

He explained that the Parliamentary Standing Orders prescribe that the Speaker convene the first meeting of each committee so that a Chairperson can be elected from its members. The same Orders, according to Patterson, provide for the Speaker to nominate either the Deputy Speaker or another member of parliament to convene the meeting on his behalf if he is unavailable.

In the absence of government members of the committee, Patterson believes the meeting can still go on.

“Three members constitute a quorum… the opposition has four members…the Chairman of the Committee must come from the opposition – thus the attendance of the Government members, while desirable, is not necessary,” Patterson said while explaining that the meeting is likely to be very brief since the first meeting of the tenth PAC lasted a mere 15 minutes.

He went on to note that Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones has received unofficial communication from the Speaker indicating that the first meetings of all Committees will be held on Monday and Tuesday but stressed that this has not been officially communicated as required by the Standing Orders.

“Standing Orders require Members to have three days’ notice before the holding of a meeting, and as of [Friday], no Member of the Opposition received notice for a proposed meeting,” he said.

Nevertheless, Patterson has already outlined his agenda for at least the first few sittings.

“Whenever the PAC sits to meet, I intend to request reports on several troubling issues that have [and] are developing,” he said explaining that these include the procurement process at GuySuCo.

The sugar company announced on Monday that it would be purchasing via an “accelerated procurement process” 44 articulated tillage tractors to contribute to its soil improvement programme.

The tractors are being purchased from Game Equipment LLC, formerly Cameco.

GuySuCo’s Chief Exe-cutive Officer (CEO) Sasenarine Singh while responding to questions from Stabroek News stated that attempts had been made to reach out to the local private sector to rent tractors but after a less than satisfactory response the company has moved to procure “sugar specific tractors” through an accelerated procurement process.

Asked to explain this process he described it as being “focused” on the procurement process and working weekly to see it through.

These tractors are projected to cost nearly half, $1.5 billion of the $5 billion allocated by government for the revitalization of the sugar industry.

Value for money

“I intend to ask the audit office to perform a value for money audit on this procurement,” Patterson announced yesterday.

The questions he would like to see answered include: How and why was this brand of tractor selected; what investigations were conducted to ensure that these tractors are suitable for the soil and climate conditions in Guyana; does GuySuCo have any experience in operating and maintaining tractors like these and is there training for staff to drive and operate the vehicles and implement a maintenance programme?

He reminded that tractors sourced from India in the past could not work because the soil was very different, so the tractors were distributed to hinterland communities where conditions were more suitable.

“When you start to change the entire regime of the company an investigation has to be done to ensure it’s not a hare-brained scheme,” the parliamentarian asserted.

In relation to the COVID-19 relief fund, the PAC, under the direction of Patterson, will be seeking an operational report.

Patterson stressed that although the financial expenditure for the project will be included in the Auditor General’s 2020 report, several other issues with regards to the distribution programme have arisen.

These issues include claims that several persons and areas have been bypassed. In cases where large families of more than one household occupy a single building there have been reports that only a single family or part of the building have received funds.

“We have also received report that sections of communities supportive of the (APNU+AFC) Coalition have been bypassed and public servants seconded to outlying regions have not been paid.  While the matter of payments will be in the 2020 AG report, we will seek an Operational Report before Budget 2021,” he concluded.                   

The current Public Accounts Committee comprises Patterson, Juretha Fernandes, Ganesh Mahipaul and Jermaine Figueira for the opposition. Members from the government’s side of the House are Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira, Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill, Dharamkumar Seeraj, Vishwa D.B. Mahadeo and Sanjeev Datadin.