The rise and fall of Henry Jeffrey

Oct 16, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

The sun has set on the Cabinet career of Henry Jeffrey. I was never impressed with the political life of this Minister who was said to have earned his placement as a Civic Member of the PPP Government. In the sixteen years that I have analyzed the PPP Government, I have felt that Dr. Jeffrey was just not a performer.

To understand why he rose from the ranks of a Burnham protégé to become a Minister in the PPP Government for sixteen years, one has to understand the political culture of both Cheddi Jagan and the party he founded.

Henry Jeffrey was catapulted into the political limelight in 1975 when as a Burnhamite ideologue, he wrote an essay for the Institute of Development Studies at UG, headed at the time by the present Economic Advisor to Caricom, Dr. Maurice Odle. Dr Jeffrey defined the concept of Cooperative Socialism as a Third World variation of the Marxist-Leninist approach to economic development.

In his paper (please contact me for a copy), he argued that Leninist economics cannot be implemented in Third World countries that lack an industrial base. He pontificated on Burnham’s genius in finding an indigenous path to socialism.

I was a student at UG at the time, when Dr. Perry Mars invited me to a seminar to debate Dr Jeffrey’s paper. Dr Mars waded into Dr Jeffrey contending that Cooperative Socialism was doomed to failure since the cooperatives were too small, lacked land, capital and other resources, and were being reinvented by the state.

Dr Mars then posited the theory that cooperative socialism is another word for state socialism since the cooperative sector was not independent of the state and was a mere footnote in the economy.

Because Dr Jeffrey appeared as a theoretical interpreter of Marxism, Burnham made him Principal of the PNC’s (not the Guyana Government’s) ideological school at Kuru Kuru on the Linden Highway.

Burnham sent Festus Brotherson and Jeffrey to do their doctorates so they could become the ideological pillars of the building of socialism. No one knows what fate has in store.

Festus Brotherson and Henry Jeffrey got their doctorate and returned to a Guyana where Desmond Hoyte was the President and Forbes Burnham was buried in a mausoleum in the Botanical Gardens. Hoyte banished both men. Jeffrey suffered a worse fate because Hoyte refused to employ him at UG.

Dr. Jeffrey then went into business selling tents for Alfresco Entertainment Purposes. Hoyte relented and Jeffrey joined UG staff. By 1990, Hoyte had internally exiled most of the occupants of Burnham’s castle.

Among them were Ranji Chandisingh, Malcolm Parris, Elvin Mc David. Henry Jeffrey took a different pathway. Unlike the other Burnhamites, he gravitated towards the PPP.

He formed a think-tank based at the Georgetown Club. Its main role was to analyze political trends. Dr. Jeffrey invited Clement Rohee to become part of the study group. The main idea coming from this think tank was that the Americans were going to allow for free and fair elections.

Dr Jeffrey argued then that the PPP will return to power. There was nothing innovative about this kind of theorizing. The world told Mr. Hoyte that he had to hold a transparent poll. But Cheddi Jagan saw Henry Jeffrey as someone whom he could work with. He became close to Dr. Jagan.

The rest is now history. He has been a Cabinet Minister since 1992. He got into controversy with the core leadership of the PPP because they saw him as one of Cheddi’s favourites and he displaced many old comrades of Clement Rohee to become Mr. Rohee’s trusted advisor.

There was more trouble for Dr Jeffrey because the accusation grew that he was not giving a hundred percent to his Ministries. Many PPP leaders told me that Dr. Jeffrey was expendable but Mr. Rohee was too powerful a player and no one could touch Dr. Jeffrey.

It was an open secret that President Jagdeo was not impressed with the performance of Dr. Jeffrey. I felt that after 2006, it would have been the end of him.

If anyone had asked me who would have been dropped from the Cabinet after 2006, I would have taken a bet and say Jeffrey. It was not only a case of not performing. Henry Jeffrey was just not Cabinet material.

He became a Minister because of the vagaries and vicissitudes of Guyanese politics. For me, he was just not cut out to be a Minister. Cheddi Jagan should have left him at UG.

But then again, the person with the worst political judgement in Guyanese politics was Cheddi Jagan. I would not be surprised if Dr. Jeffrey knocks around the Opposition, particularly the AFC. If and when that happens, I will have a word with the AFC leadership.

---

---