Jul 01, 2019 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
By exposing the massive land-grab at Lands and Survey (GLSC), the Leader of the Opposition has undoubtedly disturbed a vampire’s nest. And now all the blood-suckers are running wild trying to coverup their tracks!
At his recent press conference, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, armed with copies of maps with valuable information from Lands and Surveys, very articulately exposed the shameful theft of prime real-estate by government officials and a tiny elite cabal of the APNU, approved in the name of the President himself.
Despite this, we’re yet to hear from President Granger under whose name strategic areas of state land were given away.
It’s unbelievable how a man who avoids the press like a plague, whose government has been engaged in scandals and corruption almost on a daily basis, gets a free pass by some sections of the media, while the PPP/C gets blame for everything that goes wrong in Guyana by Kaieteur News and another news entity even though the PPP/C has been out of office since 2015.
When the land-grab scandal, complete with maps, names and file numbers were exposed to the public, Kaieteur News chose to carry a headline, “Lands and Surveys Commissioner provides facts on Opposition Leader’s land-grabbing claims”.
But what “facts” were presented by Lands and Survey to dismiss the accusations made by Jagdeo? Was he accusing Jagdeo of presenting fake maps? Did the Commissioner of the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC) Trevor Benn at his press conference present the original maps of the areas identified with a different ownership to prove Jagdeo was lying? What other “facts” were produced by Benn to refute these allegations? The evidence presented by Jagdeo was indisputable, and Trevor Benn knows it. And while the government propagandist Gordon Mosley was too busy trying to prevent others from airing the damaging report, another news entity did not even carry the original story when it was exposed by Jagdeo, but instead carried the entire Charles Ceres’ statement to the media the very next day. But what else can be expected?
Editor, doesn’t the President feel obligated to provide answers to the public for all the corruption that’s taking place in his name?
It is my opinion that the PNC propagandist has been collaborating with Lands and Surveys to cover-up the corruption, and to use the press conference to draw attention away from the President in another attempt to protect his “clean” image. So as usual, racism lifts its ugly head again, and they’re painting this as a “Black” issue.
Let’s not be fooled, this has nothing to do with racism, but everything to do with corruption. Ordinary Black people are not benefitting from this land giveaway by the government that they voted for, nor have they benefitted from the so-called “good life”, which they were promised. It is only a privileged few like a so-called “Black Activist”, with strong connections to President Granger and his cabal, who are the beneficiaries of this pathetic act of greed and corruption. And this is going on nationwide.
Just recently in Region 5, land that was used by cattle farmers of the Shieldstown Cattle Rearer’s Co-op Society in an area known as Rampoor for over 20 years, were taken away by the MMA/ADA and were allegedly given to cronies of this government. If this is true, I am calling for a full fledged investigation into this matter.
Despite the successful passage of the Whistleblowers Act, a dangerous trend is emerging by this government to silence anyone who is opposed to their corrupt activities.
Recently, the newly appointed Public Service Minister, Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, fired the accountant and all the staff of the Personnel Department in her Ministry because she believed that the information given to Jagdeo came from a whistleblower in her department. And so to be sure, she fired everyone for leaking Information which exposed the transfer of $20 Million in taxpayers money to the private bank accounts of the children of Minister Simona Broomes by the Ministry of the Presidency. Similarly, rather than focus on who may have been bribed to give away massive areas of strategically located state land, Trevor Benn is allegedly on a witch-hunt to find the patriotic employee who gave Jagdeo copies of the documents from Lands and Survey to end the corruption taking place there, and are using threats to discourage whistleblowers. But Benn has no case. These documents clearly show locations, acreage, plot numbers and ownership, and could have easily been refuted by Benn at his press conference if Jagdeo’s accusations were false. But they were not! I wouldn’t be surprised if these maps no longer exists at GLSC. I urge all patriotic public servants to continue to expose all wrongdoings in their respective departments, and to play their part in putting an end to government corruption and to these illegal cabals that masquerades as ministers of government.
HARRY GILL
PPP/C Member of Parliament

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