Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 03, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Macabre is the only word to use for the contents that are pouring out of the revelations of the actions of the past administration. Incredible, unimaginable, unbelievable are hackneyed words. Even bizarre may not be the right description. Perhaps “evil” is the most compelling adjective.
With each forensic audit, the nation learns about skullduggery, illegalities, immoralities. The audits lay bare the nature of the mentality of the actors. But where are the actors?
This poor country is owed US$5 million from a Chinese investor as the remaining installment for the purchase of the Government’s 20 percent share in GTT. No one knows where it is. NICIL has not received it and NICIL indicated that it may have been waived by then Guyana Ambassador to China, David Dabydeen.
If that is so, Dabydeen should be surcharged. The nation found out that it was taxpayers’ money that was used instead of investment funds from Sithe Global in the Amaila Fall project. The outline of this financial irregularity stinks to high heaven.
What happened is that NICIL opened an account in the name of Sithe Global. It meant that the money the investor, Sithe Global, was spending on the Amaila Falls project wasn’t finance it brought into Guyana but funds from the Government of Guyana. Sithe Global came and went and didn’t invest.
The forensic audit into the Gold Board has cited improper and illegal behaviour of then Minister of Natural Resources, Robert Persaud. The inquiry into the airport revealed that one particular contractor was getting more than eighty percent of the contracts. The particular recipient was interviewed by the police for fraud but wasn’t charged although Bank of Guyana documents revealed that he had committed fraud.
The audit of the Guyana Energy Authority cites the practice of corruption with the recommendation that its CEO face disciplinary charges.
Space would not allow for extensive quotes from these forensic probes but the same picture repeats itself in every one of them – corruption was involved, money went to people in transactions that were not above board. Where are the actors?
Robert Persaud sits comfortably in New York. A little digression is in order. This is the same Robert Persaud that fought down Khemraj Ramjattan when he, Ramjattan, was in the PPP, over a party congress resolution that Ramjattan tabled to remove Marxism-Leninism from the PPP’s constitution. Persaud chose to live in the heart of capitalism – the US.
Persaud turned his back on his own Caribbean neighbours and a sound place like Canada. Of the fanatical PPP communists, not one has chosen to live in India, Australia, Canada or the Caricom region but in the heartland of capitalism – the US. It would be interesting to see if these communist ideologues still want to retain the Marxist-Leninist description in their party’s constitution.
The airport’s CEO is still on the job. The CEO at the Energy Authority is still on the job. And the NICIL king, Winston Brassington, has taken up residency in Miami. When you read these reports you see the abysmal failure of this country. Just one of those reports would have seen criminal charges in a place like Chile or Argentina or Brazil.
Those audits in places like Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad would have already resulted in criminal proceedings. Interestingly these horrific descriptions of financial skullduggery have not bothered the PPP leadership in the least.
You have to look hard and still you wouldn’t find another country whose toppled leadership could have so abused the law, violated the law, steal billions of dollars and carry on as if they are democratic angels. The PPP leadership now in opposition says it plans to grill the government benches when Parliament resumes in the coming weeks on its expenditure on the Durban Park project among others. You have to look hard and still you wouldn’t find another group of politicians so barefaced.
Frustrated supporters of this Government would say that unless the Coalition Government places these people in front of the courts the PPP is not going to stop its public masquerade. For fifteen years under Messrs Jagdeo and Ramotar, this country was financially denuded, politically raped, its major institutions left in a rotting state (UG is an immense tragedy) and the capital city was deliberately left to exist in filth and miasma.
This horrendous abuse of power would not have been tolerated by any incoming government. The magnitude is simply shocking. Amidst all of this, the NICIL king lives happily in Miami where he presides over his own business. And the former Finance Minister who should have been on remand on Camp Street dwells comfortably on an island near to India.
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
Apr 19, 2024
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