Guyanese should apologise to Dr. Rollin Bertrand. I am doing so now

Oct 19, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Most Guyanese should apologize to Dr. Rollin Bertrand. I am doing so now.
President Jagdeo speaks for this country in legal terms. Outside of his legal remit, he does not have exclusive rights to speak on behalf of Guyanese. All citizens of this land with a national passport have the moral right to act on behalf of his/her country.
Against this understanding of the civic duties of a citizen, I extend an apology to Dr. Rollin Bertrand, CEO of Trinidad Cement Limited who was on the receiving end of an unfair comment from the President of this country. Mr. Jagdeo’s insinuated that the shape of the decision against the Guyana Government by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in the cement case may have emerged out of a conflict of interest

Mr. Jagdeo pointed to the CCJ’s Trust Fund being chaired by the very CEO of TCL, Dr. Bertrand. The implication is obvious for any school boy to understand. Here it is; Guyana lost the case to TCL because the money on which the CCJ depends for its existence, Dr. Bertrand has some influence over by his position of Chairman of the CCJ’s Trust Fund. Mr. Jagdeo made his comments on Dr. Bertrand because he is unfamiliar with how democracy operates in the British West Indies. When Ravi Dev wrote that President Burnham destroyed the British system of liberal democracy by introducing cooperative socialism, Malcolm Harripaul immediately corrected him by pointing that Jagan and his PPP long believed in a system of government where liberal democracy didn’t have a place.

The leadership of the PPP hasn’t a clue as to how far Guyana has drifted away from the British system of parliamentary democracy with its attendant features of democratic institutions one of which is the concept of the neutral civil servant. Guyana is an elected dictatorship where party paramountcy is the norm. So a senior official doing work for the PPP’s newspaper is paid by the Government. The UG Vice-Chancellor is a ruling party candidate in the national elections. Three Permanent Secretaries in the neutral civil servant are in the Central Committee (an organ of party power borrowed from communist experience) of the governing party. Articles in the party newspapers are automatically printed in the state media. Here is how vicious the PPP as a set of rulers are.

After the PPP won the elections in 1992, Moses Nagamootoo became Minister of Information. Every Wednesday morning, Nagamootoo had a working session with all senior officials in the state-owned media – Chronicle, GTV and GBC radio. Present all the time was Robert Persaud, a private citizen working for a private newspaper, the PPP-owned Mirror. I took a six months consultancy with Moses and objected to Persaud’s presence on the grounds that it was a manifestation of party paramountcy. Moses’ reply was that he is in deep trouble with the PPP at the moment and bringing up Persaud’s role in his Ministry would only exacerbate his (Nagamootoo’s) troubles. It is time Nagamootoo levels with the people of Guyana and bring out these facts so Guyanese can see how similar the PPP is with the PNC.

Jagdeo, no doubt, thought he found gold when he learnt that Dr. Bertrand is TCL’s CEO and Chairman of the CCJ’s Trust Fund. But PM Golding of Jamaica has put Jagdeo to his place a second time. Remember, earlier this year, Golding accused the Guyana government of being a panhandler by going and begging all over the globe and thus was an embarrassment to CARICOM. Now two weeks before Mr. Jagdeo made his conflict of interest remark against Dr. Bertrand, PM Golding announced that he was ready to take Jamaica into the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ because he is now satisfied that the CCJ is totally insulated from extraneous influence and political direction from Caribbean leaders. Doesn’t President Jagdeo keep in touch with Caribbean affairs?

CARICOM states do not operate like Guyana where authoritarian features are legalized as with the Guyana Constitution. Caricom states do not practice party paramountcy. Caribbean ruling parties do not have the same political culture as that of the PPP. In Guyana, under the PNC and now under the PPP, there are no fine distinctions separating party and state. In Guyana, a chairperson of an autonomous state institution is a complete joke. That chairman is a yes boy or yes girl of the Leviathan and his little underlings. President Jagdeo did not discover gold. The CCJ’s Trust Fund has no say in how those judges deliver their decisions. Guyanese who are not supporters of the President should apologize to Dr. Bertrand on behalf of their country.

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