Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 15, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
More times than I can count, I have posited in these columns that dictatorships cannot pull back, become humane and embrace a democratic culture, because inherent in dictatorship is the instinct and process of irrationality. This applies to tyrannies wherever they are, be it Russia, Burma, Guyana etc.
In these columns, countless times I have adumbrated the polemical point that the PPP cannot come out of its authoritarian cocoon, because its irrationality prevents it from seeing reality and becoming aware of the reality on the ground. This argument also contains the theory that the PPP will waste every opportunity of goodwill shown to it; will waste any political capital it gains from a situation of a generous gesture, because it will sooner than later resort to its usual arrogant, cruel, oligarchic self.
The PPP can throw a party tomorrow, kiss all the guests, give them a million dollars each and a Samsung Galaxy S5, then the next day resentment among the recipients will be generated, because the PPP is going to do some horrible, nightmarish deed, and the Guyanese nation will be shocked and sickened to the core.
One factor explains this – irrationality. The PPP cannot use the process of momentum that comes after a generous deed to engender popularity. Irrationality gets in the way. This is the pattern with tyrannical systems. After you kiss the population, give each citizen a television set, the nation wakes up the next morning and hears that you beat your wife. They keep the television box, but they think you are a horrible person – look what you did to your wife. This is the story of the PPP.
Take Rohee. Given a golden moment by the rising anger against the strange birth certificate requirement for a passport to rethink the abominable situation, Rohee was adamant that the requirement must be adhered to. Then another splendid opportunity was offered in that the court struck down the edict that the birth certificate must not be older than six months for passport application. Rohee then ordered that the document must now be not older than two years. There was another challenge in the court.
The original position has since been reverted to whereby a certificate, despite its age, is valid for a passport application. Rohee could not back down, because this is the way authoritarian systems operate. In authoritarian culture, pomposity, hauteur and hubris destroy logical thinking. As night follows day, the birth certificate debacle in the form of another situation will come, the latest one is with Charles Ramson. We see here how irrational tyrannical power is.
What you are about to read does not happen in countries with democratic traditions. Not even semi-democratic countries. What you are about read actually took place. Here is a perfect example of the irrationality inherent in naked power. This is the nature of the PPP
The Guyana chapter of Transparency Institute (TIGI) wrote Charles Ramson, the Commissioner of Information, for a copy of the documentary agreement between the Government and the Canadian firm that installed the Integrated Financial Management and Accounting System which is used by the Ministry of Finance, and which has generated a lot of controversy because two of the modules in the system have not been implemented, and it is those two modules that allow for more transparency and accountability.
Mr. Ramson replied and informed TIGI that its request cannot be accepted, because in the 2014 budget, the allocation for his office was removed, so its work is halted. In his response Mr. Ramson went out of the customary protocol of reply and wrote; “In the words of the Mighty Sparrow, no money, no love.”
We come now to the horror story of power in Guyana. TIGI informed Mr. Ramson that the Government restored the allocation to his office, and his office has been in receipt of $8.859M which the 2014 budget catered for. To make its case water-tight, TIGI brought to Mr. Ramson’s attention, Financial Paper 1/2014 – Statement of Excess which the Finance Minister tabled in Parliament on 19 June , 2014, which documents the money restored to items cut from the 2014 budget, including the allocation for Ramson’s office.
TIGI has stopped short of accusing Mr. Ramson of lying, using words like, “misleading,” and “distasteful,” and in polite language has urged the Government to reconsider the tenancy of Mr. Ramson. In other words, remove him. TIGI is going to be ignored like the countless other situations where PPP leaders have abused power so badly that it is perhaps an insult for us to hear at the Rodney Commission of how bad the PNC Government was.
JAGDEO ADDING MORE DANGER TO GUYANA AND THE REGION
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