You know a voice when you’ve heard it repeatedly

Sep 27, 2009 Features / Columnists, My Column

It is hardly amazing at the number of distractions that life in Guyana affords. Just about every day something crops up and easily overshadows some earlier event that has been grabbing national attention.
It is therefore of little wonder that reporters forget some pressing issue, to go chasing after the most recent episode.
A few weeks ago the issue at hand involved what was considered over-priced contracts for some government projects. Reporters put in a lot of work tracking down the projects, some of which had come to national attention only when Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon announced that Government had granted a no-objection to the award of the contract.
More often than not, the reporters would pay scant attention to the announcement because the award of contracts is a routine affair in any country. However, the recent focus on the contracts should make them more than routine affairs. Money is involved and that money comes from the pockets of people, many of whom can hardly afford to pay their just dues.
Of course, there are dangers inherent in the pursuit of the investigation. People hate to be exposed and they would do just about everything to cover their tracks. It has not escaped notice that President Bharrat Jagdeo has somewhat tongue in cheek, admitted that there might have been some price gouging.
One would have expected that given that admission he would have mounted an investigation so that there would be no future episodes that would prompt queries from the media and consequently, the public.
Of course, the issue of the contracts should still be ongoing, and it matters not that a contractor has moved to the courts to halt any further reporting into contracts that he undertook.
The dust had not settled when another issue came to the fore. Again the government is at the centre of this latest brouhaha, although the Cabinet in no way could be held accountable in the same way the United States cannot be held accountable for the actions of one of its employees who has been caught up in allegations of rape.
This time around the media are convinced that the individual at the centre of the scandal is indeed the government official.
When the story broke there was a mad scramble for supporting evidence, largely because that is what needs to be done when any reporter is going after a story, and more because when one fingers a government official one must always be ready to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the individual is indeed who the reporters say he or she is.
I listened to the tape recording and I am convinced that the individual fingered is who the reporters say he is. I have associated with him for a few years and in the same way I cannot hope to speak somewhere and escape identification, this individual cannot.
Mine is almost a household name largely because I am on television and because I write for the newspapers. On many occasions I have gone to the market and people would ask, or more accurately, state, “You is Adam Harris. I would know that voice anywhere.”
I would tell people that because of the nature of my voice I cannot hope to go on a robbery and escape arrest. They would laugh.
Just the other day I happened to be standing outside a mall in New Jersey. I saw this security guard come to the door and begin to pay close attention to me. I wondered whether I had done something but there is the saying, ‘Do nothing; fear nothing’.
Before long the security guard came up to me and asked, “You is Adam Harris?”
Of course he was Guyanese. He had seen me somewhere in this country and he had heard my voice when I went to the teller to pay for my purchase.
In the same way, I knew that the voice I heard on the tape recording was who the reporters say it was. In fact, more than the reporters believe that the person is who everyone feels it is.
Government Ministers who must have had much more association with this individual are convinced that it is him but such is the nature of the law that everyone must be given the benefit of the doubt.
People caught red-handed committing a crime would plead not guilty when they appear in court. Such is the nature of this case. Deny. A man caught by his wife in an act of infidelity would proclaim, “Not me.”
This matter is before the courts and I have no doubt that the injunction imposed last week would be discharged. I can assure everyone that it would then be open season. President Jagdeo would be caught up and he would be expected to act.
I await the outcome.

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