It’s not that the PPP was not mindful enough to hide its acts of pillaging our treasury.
It’s the fact that they stole too much and in untamed random order – junior, senior, water boy alike – for them to have had enough time after the brazen prorogation called by Mr. Ramotar, to cover their tracks.
And this was no ordinary act of kleptomania. This was rooted in destruction; a calculated decision to maim the rest of us by rendering us destitute -maintain blackouts, bad infra structure, high prices, low morals – the right temperature to render us hopeless and malleable for sociopolitical enslavement.
But like every evil potion the bubbling cauldron cannot be short of “Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing, as Shakespeare’s Macbeth taught us. It must have all these demonic ingredients well lined up and poured into the cauldron in sequential order, and that’s why Janet gave Sam Hinds the boot and gave us Jagdeo, the evil doer whose circumscribed mind was short enough of a moral compass to carry out the mission of politicking on the basis of ethnicity and secure enough future for his race by rendering every other race powerless through the assassination of their culture, the decimation of their surroundings, the limitation of their ability to make a living ; each move designed to suck the life out of its victims.
And he did this well, forgetting that evil always has to answer to a higher power; so we got Ramotar, comparatively docile and with the just the right measure of slow-wittedness to think that prorogation would have been a masterful move.
Now that they’re gone, it’s time for recompense; not as in revenge but as in what the law metes out to rogues and vagabonds, reprobates and miscreants, robbers and thieves, irrespective of the color of the collar of the crime.
We know that they stole and we want them to be prosecuted to both the letter and the spirit of the law. We see it every day when people are jailed for crimes that are comparatively insignificant.
Westford may have returned the vehicles she took knowing that they were bought with our tax dollars and that she was buying them well below premium at a price no other Guyanese would have been able to enjoy, except that were amongst the thieves in the den in which she dwelled. Where are the charges against her? And Webster, wearing that winsome smile that shows the enamel our tax dollars paid for. She hasn’t returned the enamel but why hasn’t she been charged?
The Surrendra pumps, misappropriation of some eight hundred million of tax payers’ dollars, why has there not been an indictment of the architects of this well planned heist of our money that has evidence of heavy kickbacks to the leaders of the previous governments? And the fibre optic deal that Alexei Ramotar was paid millions to complete. Why are we reporting that forty percent of the fiber optic cable is too busted to give us telephony without the arrest of this thief?
Need I mention the billions retrieved from old bank accounts, the amounts that include money from the Lotto Fund, Guyana Forestry Commission, Guyana God Board, Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, Guyana Energy Agency and the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited?
The Constitution of Guyana is very specific when it delineates the Constitutional and legal responsibility of a government appointed minister. And each Minister confirms his understanding of his obligation and the consequences of his dereliction of duty when he raises his hand to swear in to office. The Constitution, which was modified by the governing party that housed the thieves says the following:
Article 106 of the Constitution provides for the President to appoint his Cabinet and Ministers, but specifies at Article 106 (2) that they, “shall be collectively be responsible … to the Parliament“. Article 107 states specifically that, “The President shall appoint a Minister …. to be answerable to the National Assembly therefore on his or her behalf“.
In other words, while the President appoints the Ministers, each minister is accountable to Parliament, which works for we, the people.
We know that our Constitution provides for an Attorney General who acts as the prosecutor, also, for we the people. Per our Constitution, Article 112 says (1) There shall be an Attorney General of Guyana who shall be the principal legal adviser to the Government of Guyana and who shall be appointed by the President. And, we know that the practice of vesting prosecutorial powers in an independent DPP was a deliberate clause to exercise oversight of newly independent countries, by our colonial master. But, we have been independent for fifty years and have been held hostage to the selective prosecutorial whims of Shalimar Ali Hack – our current DPP with a laundry list of very questionable reasons not to prosecute – another strong reason for swift Constitutional reform. That does not mean that the AG, whose role is legal adviser to the President, should not be recommending that those powers be restored to the AG.
But, let’s not get side tracked.
We’re thrilled that the crimes that were committed against us by Ministers of the PPP governments are being unearthed and exposed. What we’re waiting to be thrilled by is our Attorney General’s announcement that charges have been filed against those who violated their fiduciary responsibility to us, by deliberately misappropriating our money and resources. That will be practicing to the letter of the law.
Indicting the Westfords’ and the Websters’, who knowingly and of sound mind and healthy body – including brightened teeth- stole from us because they had ample opportunity and supported motive. That will be practicing to the spirit of the law.
But we’re still waiting for indictments to be announced alongside the revelation of the crimes.
Can our Attorney General please stand up?