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Jun 17, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Kaieteur News – I am quoting directly from Donald Ramotar’s letter on me in the Kaieteur News of yesterday. I will ask readers to read this quote twice and then think of what Guyana goes through with politicians of the kind this country produces like Ramotar. Now, bear in mind, Ramotar wasn’t a passing footnote in our country but was president for four years.
Writing on my removal from UG, here is what Ramotar uttered, “Indeed Mr. Kissoon had reached retirement age and his contract was not renewed by the Appointment Committee.” Millions of people, not hundreds of thousands, but millions of people each month, each year, retire after reaching the required age. They do not take their retirement to the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman does not employ the country’s top legal brains to determine if a person reaches retirement age. Why at a commonsensical level would brilliant lawyers advice the Ombudsman, advice that the Ombudsman accepted, a retired judge, that a retiree was illegally dismissed?
Only Donald Ramotar understands the world in this way. Has there ever been a case in any part of the world where a person reaches retirement age but the courts or the Ombudsman rule that in reaching retirement the person was wrongly terminated?
With this kind of twisted logic Mr. Ramotar operates with, no wonder the PPP lost two general elections under his candidacy. But maybe the world knows how convoluted is his understanding of life and that explains the following facts:
1- Former President, Bharrat Jagdeo, is a Vice President.
2- Former Minister, Gail Teixeira, is a Vice President.
3- Former Minister, Robeson Benn, is a Minister.
4- Former Minister, Priya Manickchand, is a Minister.
5- Former Minister, Ashni Singh, is a Minister.
6- Former Minister, Juan Edghill, is a Minister.
7- Former Prime Minister, Sam Hinds, is an Ambassador.
8- Former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, has the same status.
9- Former GWI boss, Shaik Baksh, has the same status.
10- Former GPL boss, Bharrat Dindyal, has the same status.
11- Former Minister, Robert Persaud, is at Foreign Affairs.
12- Former Minister, Collin Croal, is a Minister.
13- Former high official, Kwame McCoy, is a Minister.
I could go on and on. Those names just flew out of my head. So where is the former president, Donald Ramotar, who demitted office just five years ago? Maybe his relegation to footnote status is known by so many given the way he perceives human action.
I will not pursue discussion of my wife’s ouster at GOINVEST. This lady lives a quiet life and does not want to be in the public’s eye. But one of the decent, professional persons this country produced, her former boss at GOINVEST, Geoff Da Silva, may one day say something about how she was treated. She definitely was victimised and Ramotar knows that, but I don’t expect anything sensible from the pen or mouth of Ramotar.
Concerning Ramotar’s son crushing my nephew’s leg, readers would find Mr. Ramotar’s explanation of my nephew stumbling onto the side of his son’s car so comical that he further reduces himself in the eyes of the world. I don’t think anyone who knows me, even if they hate me, would see me as trying to extort money from the then leader of the PPP over a car accident.
Many people see me as crazy and they continue to say all kinds of things about me, but in my 33 years in the media and 55 years in politics, no one has ever accused me of anything associated with finance. I never, let me repeat, never, had even half a word with Donald Ramotar over my nephew’s accident. Mr. Ramotar and his son never had a word of communication with me or my nephew.
It was arrogance that was incredible, no doubt, backed by the possession of enormous power. Ramotar at the time was General Secretary of the PPP. I never asked Benschop to talk to Ramotar or anyone else for that matter. Obviously, if the son of the leader of the ruling party hits, with his vehicle, the nephew of a leading media personality it will create news and Benschop used it on his programme.
Adam Harris, then editor-in-chief of the Kaieteur News, tried to get Donald Ramotar to acknowledge his son was wrong and for his son to talk to my nephew. Adam did not succeed. One would have liked to think that the past has passed, and Ramotar would have conceded wrongs done to people who criticised him and his party. But maybe, the human mind will always remain in the gutter. I hope the new leadership of the PPP government rises above the mind-set of the Ramotars of this world.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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