Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 26, 2015 APNU Column, Features / Columnists
There seems to be no limit to the vulgarity of ministers of the People’s Progressive Party government.
President Donald Ramotar, addressing a political rally in Aishalton, is on record as having publicly scolded a schoolteacher in a vulgar manner that constituted disrespect for indigenous people. The man had simply questioned the former President’s [Jagdeo’s] record in office. Ramotar, responded, “You don’t know anything about Jagdeo; if he been hay he mighta slap yo, coz you stupid.”
Ramotar is no stranger to strong language in public. Addressing the solemn, annual commemoration ceremony for Cheddi and Janet Jagan, at Babu Jaan, Corentyne, he insulted his former, long-standing colleague Moses Nagamootoo for comments made about Guyana’s debt, “referring to him as “the jackass Nagamootoo.”
Ramotar, during the election campaign in November 2011, had told a rally at Whim Village on the Corentyne Coast: “[Moses] Nagamootoo…was expecting Ramjattan to make him Vice-President! Ramjattan is a puppet! Ramjattan is a sham…So, if Nagamootoo think that Ramjattan gon make him Vice-President, Lauraah!
Priya Manickchand, former Minister of Human Services and Social Security made her mark as a ‘vulgarian’ during the term of office of Hillary Clinton as US Secretary of State. Hours after the release of the US international Trafficking in Persons Report in July 2010, the PPP administration convened a press conference.
Placed on the Tier 2 Watch List for the fourth consecutive year, Guyana was described as having a “significant” number of persons who had been trafficked. Manickchand is reported to have described the Report as “crap” and said it was “based on sheer ignorance and eye pass.” Several of her cabinet colleagues joined the chorus to express their rehearsed outrage.
Manickchand most recently displayed her ‘vulgarian’ behaviour at a reception marking US Independence Day in 2014 that was also intended as a farewell function for outgoing US Ambassador Brent Hardt.
Minister of Health Dr Bheri Ramsaran is the most recent PPP ‘vulgarian.’ Ramsaran, as he was being interviewed by reporters at Whim, Corentyne, was asked by a female rights activist why he was wasting time on a protest line when he had more important issues to attend to with regard to Guyana’s health sector. Responding to Nageer’s questions, Ramsaran shouted, “Shut your mouth and get out my face.” He subsequently continued to direct more obscenities at the young woman.
Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall was heard in a recording to be asking repeatedly about the identity of the young woman and further intimated that his relative was interested in a sexual encounter with her. Nandlall used vulgar, offensive and disrespectful language to implicate the young woman in an inappropriate sexual relationship. There was much more.
Former President Bharrat Jagdeo, widely regarded as the father of public abuse, set the tone for other cabinet members to emulate. The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Media Monitoring Unit (MMU) recently reported that Jagdeo’s remarks at a Memorial Ceremony held for former President Dr. Cheddi Jagan were racially divisive.
The controversial part of the speech read “…they shout about racism of the PPP, but they practise racism. They whisper campaigns. In the last elections they went to some of the Afro-Guyanese villages and beat some drums at 6 o’clock in the morning and say let us throw out these ‘coolie’ people. Get up, go out and vote, throw out the ‘coolie’ people. That’s the kind of language they use. Anybody from our party who uses that sort of language, we will kick them out. This is our approach.”
The MMU, after reviewing the remarks, took the position that it was obvious that Jagdeo was using a racial mobilization incident that allegedly occurred during the 2011 elections to make the point that racism will not be tolerated by his political party, the PPP/C.
It is clear that some PPP cabinet ministers have degraded the high offices of the Republic with their invective and vituperative language. The frequency and vulgarity of their offensive statements in public places and against certain persons suggest that there is a deeper disdain and reckless disregard both for their office and the people.
The PPP ministers have brought the entire nation into disrepute. Their crass, coarse and crude choices of words in their public statements have been a major cause of the collapse of confidence in the PPP.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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