“Firewall” – The Blame Game

Oct 12, 2008 Features / Columnists

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Peter R. Ramsaroop, MBA
Chairman, Vision Guyana

INTRODUCTION
This week when the President finally returned to Guyana, he held a press conference and said that he was building a “firewall” around Guyana’s financial system. I thought he must have confused the terminology with the Great Wall of China, since that was where he was.

Well for those that understand the terminology, a “firewall” is an integrated collection of security measures designed to prevent unauthorized electronic access to a networked computer system including SPAM… I am not sure how the President is going to build this massive computer security program around Guyana to protect it from the global financial crisis.

It shows how out of touch he has become with our needs as citizens and what are the measures we should have been implementing all along to boost our economy, so when crises like this hit we can deal with them better.

Instead, the reason why he is so calm is because he knows that all the excessive tax the government has stolen from us by taxing us at 16% plus our 33% income taxes has been hoarded. The government already has their money to last them for a few years, while the citizens of the nation are in survival mode.

They can still drive fancy vehicles, travel first class, enjoy a large entertainment budget and use terminology such as “firewall” while many still cook on fireside.

Fast forward to a few months from now, the blame game for our economy will be on the global crisis, in the hope we would have forgotten that we already were in a financial crisis. Many still can’t afford transportation and basic food items.

MUST BE SPAM
For every report card that is given to this government, whether on the economy, security, drug trafficking to death squads, they seem to have already built a firewall to prevent them from accepting the truth. It must be SPAM and the firewall did not protect it.

Economic Crisis: 2008

I will build a “Firewall” President Jagdeo said, weeks after the crisis hit and he finally returned to the country. The Ministries of Finance, Commerce or Trade were afraid to make any statements until the President returned. This week already we have had a new report that Guyana has slipped in rankings as a business investment venue.

The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, in a report that investigated regulations that enhances business activity and those that constrain it in 181 countries, rank Guyana at 105. The President also called the EU “colonial masters” as it relates to the EPA.

Corruption Report: 2007 – 2008

The Guyana Government has dismissed a report by the German-based Transparency International (TI) that claimed the country is perceived to be among the most corrupt in the Caribbean.

Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon said the Bharrat Jagdeo government had rejected the findings of the Transparency International Report on corruption because the findings were based on biased opinions.

“We continue in the same mode, and we continue to reject these finding based on opinions and indeed to examine what one of our partners has said,” Luncheon said.

Drug Report – 2007

“If the rich and powerful United States, with all the high tech resources at its disposal can’t even protect its own border, how does it expect a poor country like Guyana to police its border?”

President Jagdeo further went on to say that Guyana lacks the resources to clamp down on narco traffickers en route to the US. It was alluded to that the US is where the real money laundering takes place along with so called big time drug dealers.

Phantom Killings – 2004 to Present – Unsolved

The US State Department, through spokesperson Richard Boucher, reacted to the results of the Commission on Inquiry by stating that although no credible evidence was found to directly link Minister Gajraj to the so-called Phantom Death Squad, there were “serious procedural irregularities in his official conduct related to his involvement with individuals who allegedly carried out extra-judicial killings.”

Richard Boucher also said, “Gajraj’s resumption of a key ministry, with direct authority over law enforcement activities in Guyana, undermines the rule of law in that country.” The PPP/C was defiant in their re-instatement of then Minister Gajraj and subsequently issued the following statement on their official website:

The Party is also dismayed at the statements of the U.S.A. and U.K, as part of the E.U, in particular. These two countries have had long links with Guyana. Their actions in the past contributed to the perpetuation of the PNC dictatorship for over two decades.

Moreover that was also responsible for reducing our country from being the most developed in the region in 1964 to becoming the poorest.

Trafficking of Children

Every year Guyana is Rated in Tier 3 – Denied by Ministry of Social Services

Government condemns official and media about conservancy dam breach

No breach in conservancy dam – D&I Head- Kaieteur News article erroneous

Georgetown, GINA, January 31, 2005 – There has been no breach in any of the conservancy dams. This is the assurance of the Chief Executive Officer of the National Drainage and Irrigation Board (ND&IB) Ravi Narine. The fact that it was more mismanagement that caused the great flood of 2005.

Auditor General Reports – Billions unaccounted for
….Amounts totaling $3.945 billion were drawn from the Fund by way of 138 advances….As at 31 December 2006, forty-nine of these advances, totaling $1.721 billion, remained outstanding.” Denied by every ministry involved.

Sir Davies Report on Parliament
GINA: “Obviously, the PPP/C Administration can have no further interest in the Report as presented. A cursory examination of the document has revealed many areas where the author has exposed the pitfalls of not properly consulting”

CONCLUSION:
There are dozens of other reports that I have not listed here due to space. We have to stop denying the obvious and work towards solutions such as reducing the excessive tax burden on our people, to pay attention to the Venezuela arms build up, to stop the corruption as stated in the Auditor General Report and the Transparency International Report, to stop giving out concessions to friends and to ensure that the government is accountable to the people. To give back our tax money to us the citizens not to a few as they did with Carifesta contracts.

We must quickly look at establishing export free zones at Lethem as Brazil did on their side of the border, not to come down with a heavy hand on the citizens of Lethem who are trying to establish competitiveness in the region.

Change the law on vehicles; allow them to be able to trade with Brazil in a competitive way. For them to buy vehicles in Guyana with the excessive tax system, will put them out of business. Change the Law.

We have a government that is out of tune with the realities of us the citizens, with what our issues are, what are our needs, what are the economic plans necessary to hold up our economy, and inject some fusion in it.

Let us break this “firewall” that the President has built to keep us the citizens out of governance, we are not spam, we are real people. Until next time “Roop”

Email:[email protected] or visit the website: www.visionguyana.com

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