CLICO (Guyana) is the real McCoy

Mar 16, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

The opposition PNCR has been accused of not being militant enough. They should now avoid being accused of falling victim to the wiles of the Government.

The PNCR has been in opposition long enough to spot political slyness on the part of the Government. They should not be naïve and fall victim to the ‘traps’ that are being set for them by the Government.

The Government is in desperate straits. The CLICO (Guyana) fiasco is getting more intriguing with each passing day. And more and more questions are going to be asked about the role of the Government in the problems of the company, and the reasons for guaranteeing that no policyholder will lose any money.

With each passing day, the limitations of the Jagdeo administration are being further exposed. The Government is in the “deep end” of a managerial quagmire, and seems to have no idea of how to prevent Guyana drifting from crisis to crisis.

The Finance Minister read a statement last week in the National Assembly. You would believe he was reading the sequel to his budget speech. His tone was strong and assured, but the statement itself provided few answers. It instead sought to defend the Government’s record in managing the country’s financial sector.

While much of the blame was placed at the doorstep of the global financial crisis, the fact remains that CLICO (Guyana) found itself in problems because it was in breach of the Insurance Act, and because this breach involved the excessive concentration of assets in one single company overseas. Financial crisis or no financial crisis, it was a reckless and ill-advised decision for which the Government should now be calling in a private prosecutor, rather than calling in demands which cannot be honoured at this time.

The Opposition therefore needs to be focused and not let itself be deflected from the goal of investigating the many dimensions of the CLICO (Guyana) fiasco. They should not allow themselves to be diverted by red herrings.

The Jagdeo administration knows how to deflect attention by throwing in red herrings. When the Sanata Complex deal was exposed, the Government threw in a red herring to distract attention from this matter. This was a turning point in this country’s economic history because it marked the beginning of some of our major problems which lead right back to the nature of the political administration and their dealings with others, and not as Professor Clive Thomas is theorising as simply the phenomenon of the Criminalised State, which is a highly flawed theory of explaining what is taking place in Guyana.

Guyana is no failed state. While there is deep-rooted corruption, the model of a Criminalised State can fit most countries. What we have in Guyana is the hijacking of the Government by vested interests of the bourgeoisie class.

The Government has jumped into bed with a few gold-diggers. An incestuous relationship has also developed to the extent that a powerful clique has gained tremendous influence over the Government.

What we have is not a criminalised state, but a Government that is under the spell of forces that will milk this country dry by the time they are finished. What we have taking place is the economic rape of this country, a pillage and plunder of the resources of the State that is moving ahead like a runaway train.

What the PNCR is making noises over is the Government, but they are not seeing the powerful economic class that is pulling the strings.

For this reason, the Opposition needs to be vigilant and not allow itself to be deflected by issues such as the appointment of Kwame McCoy to the Rights of the Child Commission. The PNCR staged a protest against the press officer after he was nominated to sit on this commission.

I did not see the Opposition staging a protest against the Sanata Deal. I did not see a PNCR picket line calling on the Government to appoint a special prosecutor to pursue legal action against CLICO (Guyana) for breach of the insurance laws. I did not see them making their protests against the GRA for asking tax officers to take polygraph testing.

But guess what, they are in the streets protesting Kwame, and the Mayor has now joined them in being critical of Kwame.

Kwame McCoy is not the real McCoy. CLICO (Guyana) is the real McCoy. Kwame is just the diversion that the government has thrown in to detract attention from the fallout from CLICO.

The PNCR must not fall victim to this distraction. They must keep their eyes on the ball because they have the wider interests of the Guyanese people to safeguard.

Rather than bothering with Kwame McCoy, the PNCR should be unravelling the relationships that the Government had with CLICO and determining whether, in guaranteeing that all policyholders would be safeguarded, the Government is not acting in a self-serving manner.

---

---