These allegations amount to nothing

Jul 27, 2008 Letters

Dear Editor,
I refer to a letter from David Patterson which is riddled with misinformation and I think that the record must be set straight, since Patterson continues to mislead the public about his and his party’s functioning in the Guyana Parliament.

First of all my letter was primarily written to set the record straight regarding a report in the newspaper which stated that Patterson brought to the attention of the Public Accounts Committee the fact that the new Guyana Pharmaceutical Corp. was getting all of the business to supply the government with drugs since 1997 without having to go through a process of competitive bidding. I said that it was Winston Murray who brought this matter up and not Patterson as was reported and the verbatim account of the meeting will substantiate my charge.

Patterson alleges that there is no hansard for the standing committees and that the minutes will be there as evidence. In the event that Patterson was not paying attention, all standing committees have minutes which not only broadly outline the decisions taken at the meetings, but in addition there is a verbatim record of the meetings which I referred to as the hansard in which every word uttered by every member is recorded.

Unhappily Patterson does not seem to understand these facts.
I will not address whether Patterson is in a conflict of interest position or not at this time since the source which led me to make the charge is looking into it; when I uncover the truth I will unhesitatingly apologise to Patterson or renew my charges.

As far as resuscitating my now defunct commentary programme is concerned, I don’t see how that is Patterson’s business but for the information of the public, I have no intention of doing so at this time, since unlike others I am not a hypocrite and it would be hypocritical to portray myself as an impartial analyst of matters mainly political whilst sitting on the opposition benches of the Parliament. The fact is that I voluntary stopped my commentaries and despite pressure from numerous sources I have not decided to start them back.

Patterson then accuses me of taking money under false pretences, since he alleges that I am taking my parliamentary salary and not attending meetings and funnily enough that is the one libel which is contained in this exchange between him and me.

As a result he now forces me to set the record straight and to nail this myth that the AFC is making a difference in the Guyana Parliament.

From 21st of December, 2006 to the 18 December, 2007 I attended 19 PAC meetings out of a total of 27. I was absent from one and was excused from seven. Patterson was present at 18 of the 27 meetings, being absent from two and excused from seven. My attendance was therefore better than his.

Patterson has alleged that I did not attend any PAC meetings since October 2007; it’s a lie. I attended five meetings after the October break in 2007 until December 12th and was absent from only one meeting.

I am a member of the Economic Services Committee and became the chairman on rotation of that committee at the beginning of 2008. Being chairman of the Economic Services Committee is almost a full time job in itself and out of a total of 29 meetings of the Economic Services Committee since the beginning of 2007, I was present at 26, was absent once and was excused twice; Mr. Ramjattan for example was present at only 15 of the 29 meetings, was absent 12 times and was excused twice.

In the six months since I have been chairman of the Economic Services Committee we [all the members of the Committee] have invited the Prime Minister to give evidence on GP&L which he did on June 4th, 2008 and we invited GuySuCo to give evidence on the state of the sugar corporation which they did on the 11th July 2008, especially the Skeldon expansion project. So we have been very busy in that committee.

The PAC and the Economic Services Committees meet almost every week and frankly when my whip Mr. Carberry asked me to sit on the Select Committee to redraft the Forestry Bill, I explained to him that it would be impossible to sit on three committees which would occupy more than 10 hours every week [counting out the endless hours of research which must go into the preparation for each meeting]. Let me clarify for those who do not know that it meant that if Parliament is sitting I would have to be at meetings in Parliament on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

It would be impossible given my other obligations, so I asked to be temporarily excused from the PAC which was still looking at the audit for the year 2005, a historical excursion down memory lane at best, and opted to accept the select Forestry Committee task since I would have an opportunity to help make some changes to that bill, which has been so controversial, and it is legislation which is still to come and any input now by the opposition will be of great value.

That makes it very important to Guyana’s future, and I have to say that Minister Robert Persaud has been heeding suggestions put forward by Mr. Carberry and myself in this select committee so we have been able to accomplish much.

To date we have had 11 Select Forestry Committee meetings. I was present at seven, was excused for being out of the country and being in hospital three times and I was absent once. Mr. Ramjattan, the AFC representative, was present at only five of the meetings and was absent from six.

Mr. Patterson says that I don’t go to meetings and that I am taking the state’s money by false pretences, which is total nonsense, but since he was trained by Dick Morris, I understand his problem.

Anthony Vieira MS MP