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Apr 06, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Let me repeat in these columns for the umpteenth time – I am not a supporter of the APNU+AFC government, but the PPP will never get my support, and I don’t want the PPP to rule my country again. I want to see a shared governance formula of a number of parties representing different ethnic communities and sectoral interests.
In such a configuration, there must be a place for both the PPP and PNC. There cannot be national cohesion and societal stability if the PPP and the PNC are not in a power-sharing formation. Having said that, I think the present shape of the PPP is unacceptable to the future of this country.
People have a right to vote for the party of their choice. Indians will root for the PPP in the next general elections, despite the sordid record between 2001 and 2015. That is their right. African Guyanese will not turn their backs on the PNC, even though they can see for themselves that Guyana will not have a genuine future with their leaders. Both ethnic communities need to go beyond the PPP and PNC and seek a multi-racial construct.
I supported the no-confidence motion. I accept Charrandass as my friend. I will not abandon Charran until I see proof of corruption. My opinion is that the bribery tag is an obnoxious red-herring that is losing its colour and looking like a whiter shade of pale each day. Having said all of that, I cannot look into my heart and condemn APNU+AFC’s performance as worse than the 15 years of Jagdeo/Ramotar combination. It was not. In fact, it was better.
I meet people every day, mind you not every week but every day, and they are completely disenchanted with this government. I think a psychological analysis would reveal they dislike the APNU+AFC girls and boys because they hated the PPP regime and filled up their psychology with enormous expectations. When reality started to bite, and it came home that the APNU+AFC boys and girls were extraordinarily clueless people, they unfairly stacked up the APNU+AFC against the PPP.
Those who dislike APNU+AFC have to be dishonest to conveniently forget what the PPP did. On every level of policy-making the PPP ran Guyana as if it was their personal playground. The rule of Guyana from Jagdeo in 2001 to 2015 was the most horrible in the history of the English-speaking Caribbean. How can one easily forget this?
Where does one start to describe for a stranger from another planet what the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabals did? And when you paint the canvas, do the people clamouring for the PPP’s return accept what they see. Corruption is a favourite word used by PPP leaders to condemn the present administration. Are these people clowns, jokers or downright sick humans? Do people listen to Jagdeo and company when they condemn the present rulers for corruption? Do sane humans believe Jagdeo and his PPP mandarins?
Let us refresh the minds of those who cannot see further than their nose. A man was given the privilege to have his own private hangar at the Timehri airport. This guy flew in, bypassed customs and airport security, and flew out in exactly the same way he came in. This rascal is now facing a huge jail term for cocaine trafficking and money laundering in the US. Who facilitated him and who were his beneficiaries during the reign of Jagdeo and Ramotar?
Fip Motilall never built a dog pen, much less a major road. Yet he was awarded the contract to build the roadway to Amaila Falls. The guy’s contract was terminated and he went back to his cocoon in “Little Berbice” in New York after pocketing hundreds of millions of Guyana dollars. Who gave him the contract in the first place? Who collected a part of the Guyanese money he left with?
I go to Mon Repos external market on the roadway often, and each time my eyes would glance at the internal market the Jagdeo regime built for $45 million. You don’t have to be an engineer to know that the small, little concrete structure couldn’t cost ten million, much less forty.
For the fifteen years that Jagdeo and Ramotar dominated Guyana, dozens of billions went to small contractors all over Guyana who charged exorbitant amounts for tiny little things in tiny villages, and part of the money went into the pockets of ruling politicians. How sad that after they came in to power, the APNU+AFC boys and girls couldn’t come up with a single conviction against the corruption monsters that stalked the land from 2001 to 2015.
JAGDEO ADDING MORE DANGER TO GUYANA AND THE REGION
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