We won’t go as far as saying that the Faces of Corruption in Guyana are a result of US backed installation of its lawless government – though we know they expressed concern over Jagdeo’s Home Affairs record of extra judicial killing and that they knew Irfaan Ali’s 19 indictments were withdrawn because his occupation of the Presidency rendered him immune from prosecution under his own government.
We’ll just recall that its Ambassador, Sarah Ann Lynch, arrived in Guyana on or around March 9 2019, presented her Credentials to President Granger, then on April 10th 2019, she was emailed by Mercury LLC on behalf of Jagdeo and his Party about his No Confidence Motion.
And we’ll do so as we reflect on its protracted and convenient record of working with other dictators, fascists, crooks and murderers in every continent to promote the kind of democracy that’s convenient to its quest for global power.
From all accounts, Lynch is still in Guyana. At least she was when she expressed how she was “shocked and saddened” at Trump’s attack on his country’s Democracy.
Just mentioned that to underscore the tandem of words deployed with sanctimonious hypocrisy for stock-phrase diplomacy.
If she were at all sincere, though, she would have been asking the Government why the appearance of corruption is so manifest in so much of what it does …foremost of which is its leadership picks.
Take, for example, Shaik Baksh who was handpicked to return to Guyana Water Authority as its boss, having been there as Minister 1998 -2006 then as CEO from 2012 to 2015.
No need to rehearse how running and potable water was a rare and rationed commodity during his tenure, the ineptitude of which is corruption itself but an audit revealed that public servant Baksh accepted tax free rent to live in his own home while in service to his government!
He even gave himself a raise based upon performance appraisals he did himself and ordered up a GYD 4.7 M Nissan for ‘project work’ which his son, an unauthorized user, wrote off in a reckless smash up on a tab paid for by tax payers.
And after that, the man got to play Minister of Education where he, “predictably”, ran into a matter involving millions in lap tops, contract awards and some computational mish mash which ended with him being proclaimed a liar.
Corruption, say some, occurs when broad powers of authority are granted without mechanisms to circumscribe their exercise and in the absence of regulation, law being more definitive, often aids the abuse of power and corruption when there is some legal loophole to jump through.
That, to us, is the academic excuse for pathological dishonesty by sleazy characters who abuse public trust because they can get away with it.
Using public office to commit felonies is criminal, even if you wrap a philosophical bow around it, or attempt to bury the crimes by claiming the thieves have ascended to higher office, or just drop the charges because your government is lawless and you’re a dictator or his puppet.
And here’s how we know that the world knows it.
Back in 2006 under the PPP, then led by Jagdeo, Guyana was the third poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and a lawless Narco State squarely in the sites of the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
By then, with its debt -to -government revenue still hovering around the 469% of previous years positions, (pg. 3, 2nd bullet), the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) decision to write off about half billion in loans presented an opportunity for, then, Ambassador Bullen to “influence” Jagdeo to implement long overdue “governance improvements”(1.C) .
This confirms the US Government knew Jagdeo was the overseer of a narco state as did Canada per (7C).
But what else do we see here?
The mention of Sasenarine Kowlessar who was Jagdeo’s Minister of Finance from 1999 – 2006 overseeing, arguably, the country’s worst period of inflation , rising spending, over 11% unemployment, an outpouring of benevolence in the form of foreign aid, and a brisk shadow economy, all components that go into the Corruption Perception Index, which stayed on a steady rise during his stay in office (199-2007) handling finances.
The appearance of corruption manifest in Government’s leadership picks, is why we mention Kowlessar, now appointed Chairman of Guyana Revenue Authority, having recently been on bail for the sale of properties by National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited , NICIL, during his tenure as one of its director in 2004.
For further context, Kowlessar’s leadership partners during this period were Ashni Singh and Winston Brassington all of whom, charged for fraud by the Granger Administration, had those charges dropped by the Ali/Jagdeo team which hired them back as Finance and Gas to Shore Czar, respectively.
Chris Ram- the one of Ram and McRae – still holds the trophy for giving the best visual of NICIL and these officers, in his description of their violations in diverting NICIL funds.
“The company-NICIL can even divert sewage. It financed the multi-million dollar sewage diversion for the Kingston phantom hotel project that refuses to go away.”
And corruption unchecked grows grotesque appendages like the buildings that blot the skyline in violation of the Nation’s Town and Country Planning 20:01 in a show of conspicuous consumption, to scream some prestige.
There’s an argument that suggests gaudy extravagance is a way of establishing status by those whose social positions are tainted by their journey to supposed wealth.
Not our discussion.
We just harken back to buildings like Bank of Guyana, erected around 1965 under the oversight of reputably qualified engineers like Taylor Woodrow and Associates, established architects like W.H. Watkins and Partners, in consultation with Town Planning and all related government authorities.
This contrasts dramatically, and dangerously so, with todays ‘skyscrapers’.
Incomplete construction on Regent Street at the old GIMPEX building has a sign that boasts T. BIS Int. Inc. 447 Plantation Providence East Bank Demerara.
No business with this name at this address could be located but further checking revealed that the company was incorporated on March 4 2020 in Florida by a Taran Bisessar of Trinidad and Tobago.
TBIS was then dissolved and re-incorporated, in 2021 , ostensibly with a Nerissa Tyler added as Manager, an address change from Alta Monte Springs to Blue Violet Way Florida and an Allison Bissessar added as another Manager.
References attesting to the engineering, architectural or construction management qualifications of this team are not publicly available…like Taylor Woodrow and Associates and W.H. Watkins and Partners, licensed and registered companies vending their craft.
The point at this point?
We’d love to confirm –irrespective of issuing Administration- if this builder was vetted by Guyanese authorities for credentials to erect a structure of this magnitude, one that affects additional utilities like water and electricity service, ingress and egress, pedestrian and vehicular traffic and other critical interrelated ancillaries.
Lawlessness has returned as the overwhelming feature of existence in Guyana.
Consent of the governed be damned, it seems, as questionable construction continues unabated, with private structures taking over public drainage for private convenience.
The Croal Street ‘dock’ off of the BM SOAT Auto Sales property, anchored in the middle of the Croal Street trench, a drainage artery for the city, is seen as a another normalized violation of construction and zoning rules of the City Council and the Town and Country Planning – none of which seem to perform any oversight, as violations contravene Planning’s stated reason for its enactment…its own pledge.
And as the gears of government continue to grind on this systemic disregard for lawfulness and the bureaucrats are selected because their specific contaminants will promote that optimal level of corruption, the receding role of the Opposition offers little comfort that it is mounting a robust enough defense of our Democracy, its Constitution and and its Laws, to hold this Government accountable, as is its duty.
We are sure that Dr. Rowley as the head of CARICOM can issue a statement of condemnation of the Government locking the Opposition out of Parliament…which will do little, if anything, to impact the suffering of those subjected to the political strangulation that is now daily living.
But shouldn’t the hypocrisy of the abundance of Plenipotentiary Ambassadors to Guyana who remain silent, as the government under which they execute their duties locks out the duly elected arm from the National Assembly, be broadcast to a more international stage?
Shouldn’t the financial aid being disbursed to a virtual dictatorship, like the 19.8 billion in aid from the EU, which punctuates its policy with democracy and human rights, be given a platform larger than a local news organ?
Guyana is in a crisis of government with a President so roundly unqualified that the only thing surpassing his ignorance is his contrived arrogance.
The Positions of President and Opposition are self-evident and this person, with his conflation of questionable academic qualifications and felonies not dismissed by a determination of his innocence, may want a personal consolation prize —like a ring kissing exercise.
Which brings us back to the resident plenipotentiary diplomats whose definitions of democracy and human rights are beginning look even less authentic.
Silencing the laws to make the laws is not the ‘Noisy Democracy’ of Sarah Ann Lynch and the resident diplomats.
Neither is recycling the bureaucrats with records more robust in corruption than public service, whom they excoriated not so long ago, the good governance these diplomats claim to promote.
So, we have to wonder why a government with the most odious violators of human rights and a ‘second in command’, Jagdeo, with a State Department dossier that details his proximity to criminality (10 thru 14) and an unfitness for a political leadership role (8), would suddenly become the delight of the segment of the world that sees through to his rancid core.
America’s hearty appetite for election interference and regime change for its own benefit is a well published ‘secret’.
In 2006, then Ambassador Bullen made a prescient closing statement in his notes to State Department about the geopolitical importance of Guyana in a region progressively hostile to US hegemony and suggested that a puppet government be installed in Guyana to protect US interests.. (last paragraph).
The overall mission of American Diplomacy is that of dominance by establishing its indispensability through aid and the massaging of the lesser parts of local politicians they see as a conduit to their goal.
They have no qualms in inflicting a Government with the characters of a Jagdeo on the citizens of Guyana, once they get what they want.
They’re there now – but we’re hoping that the Opposition, our only backstop, will step up in bolder fashion and not pawn our independence or offer tonal adjustments to our sovereignty to support any nation’s primacy…as is expected of compromised natives.
We’re just not going to be their Puppet Regime.
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