Latest update May 13th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 01, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Many times on this page, I have observed that the PPP Government, seventeen years in power, have chalked up more scandals than the PNC administration under Burnham which has been in power the same years – 1968 to 1985. With all the tall tales that the PPP, when in opposition, has published about Burnham, you would think it would have a less sordid record. As history stands, the PPP Government, from Dr. Jagan in 1992 to Mr. Jagdeo in the present, is the most scandal-hit government in the CARICOM family from colonial times to the post-Independence. A footnote is in order – I honestly don’t believe Dr. Jagan ever involved himself in monetary nastiness but he certainly refused to prosecute some of his protégés that he received evidence on.
One evening last year, three of us in the media, having a lime at one of Georgetown’s known “watering-holes” decided to enumerate the PPP’s episodes of venalities. We counted 33 and forgot some of the most egregious ones. Somebody shouted out about a most recent one that completely missed us – the purchase of a $60M property by an ordinary clerk whose husband holds a powerful position. Guess another incident that we should not have left out – “Kerzorke” the nick name for a remand prisoner on suspicion of being part of a murderous phantom gang, in the custody of the police in the Georgetown Hospital who died mysteriously. How he died (suspected poisoning) and who killed him and what information he had locked up in his head?
We didn’t include Axel Williams’s murder. I remembered that, days after. We didn’t register Bramanand Nandalall’s complaint, which made front page headlines in this newspaper that the then Home Affairs Minister was out to murder him. Whatever horrible interpretation you put on the nature of failed governance in Guyana under the PPP, the incontrovertible, undeniable fact is that few if any government in any part of the world (not could) survive such an ocean of scandals and some credit must be given to the PPP’s extraordinary ability to survive. I once penned a column with that title (ocean of scandals). It tells the long and tragic story of Guyana and its failure as a 20th century state.
In any other Caricom nation, the administration would have collapsed under societal pressure. My own take on the Burnham regime is that he would not have endured if he had invented those kinds of venalities that we see surround the PPP Government from 2002 onwards. The morbid curiosity of these mountainous perversities is their never-ending process. A week may pass by and nothing immoral happens, then you can easily predict that in days to come, a creepy creature will emerge and the distasteful odour would punctuate the social environment. Guyanese are accustomed to saying that Guyana is jinxed. You wonder if the PPP isn’t too. From the time this party was born, tragedy, scandals and tall tales have become its hallmark. Sadly but factually, the PPP can’t seem to get anything right.
Now in huge fonts, the Stabroek News in its Sunday edition, featured the screaming complaint of Mr. Bob Persaud, the brother-in-law of murdered Cabinet Minister “Sash” Sawh that the attack was not a robbery and may involve Roger Khan and that the Government may want to hide details that would implicate important officials. If Freddie Kissoon, or the Stabtroek News, or Christopher Ram or the Kaieteur News had made such a pronouncement, the Musketeers at OP would have deemed us rumour-mongers. But this is Sawh’s own brother-in-law and he is not a PPP critic. He is not a politically minded person. This gentleman has vowed to investigate the attack that caused the death of his wife. He wants the Canadian Government to intervene. This gentleman should contact us in the media let us tell him what we know.
He should seek to speak to the Secretary of the Canadian Prime Minister. There is no question in my mind that the PM will arrange a meeting after the explosive evidence he would have seen. This gentleman should ask his constituency Parliamentarian in Canada to make contact with the office of Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton has a working knowledge of the terrible things that are happening in Guyana and she is aware that drug traffickers have political protection. If Mr. Persaud carries on his justice search, powerful politicians in Canada and the US will help him and they have the leverage that will put pressure on the elected dictators in Guyana.
Listen how to run an oil country
May 13, 2024
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