The wrong kind of Guyanese people in 2009

Jan 18, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In my column yesterday, I looked at the positive contributions of some Guyanese that we should have admired in 2009. Today, I evaluate those who have let down this nation very badly. I will start with President Jagdeo. I mean nothing personal but I think Mr. Jagdeo is not an impressive leader at all. Lacking intellectual substance, Mr. Jagdeo displayed a miserable absence of political finesse in the year just gone. He drifted from one deplorable mistake to another.

The absence of the legal basis of his marriage should have carried his resignation. Most people, if not all, who knew Mr. Jagdeo as President of Guyana married to Ms. Varshnie Singh believed she was his legal wife, legal in that the paper work had the legal stamp of the Registry of Marriages, Deaths and Births. The nation was led to believe it was legal. In any other country, there would have been tempestuous demands for his resignation. I don’t know where next to move because Mr. Jagdeo’s mistakes were literally mountainous so it is best to pass on. Dr. Leslie Ramsammy deserves the contempt of this nation. The evidence against him that appeared last year in the context of Roger Khan was overwhelming. There is every reason to believe that Dr. Ramsammy may be of interest to the US Department of Justice as 2010 gets older.

I would cite Chief Magistrate Robertson as a person that made the law look foolish last year. It is clear that she leads a list of magistrates that do not know the laws and are exasperatingly incompetent. They all should be removed if a new government comes into being this year. Surprisingly, Ms. Nagamootoo, daughter of Moses Nagamootoo, has chosen to emulate Ms. Robertson. Magistrate Nagamootoo put a young lady on $4M bail for fraud. Isn’t that foolish? As soon as Magistrate Robertson opens her mouth, out comes, “no bail.” She doesn’t understand the guidelines for refusing bail.

Most magistrates don’t and it leaves you to question how good they were as law students. Nowhere in the law is bail to be used as a punitive measure. You cannot deny John bail because the crime he is accused of is prevalent. Has it ever occurred to you that a majority of magistrates took the job because the prospects of success in private practice were not evanescent? Equally foolish are the jokers in the Bar Association that are silent on the no bail madness in the Magistracy. It is time the Chief Justice and the Chancellor begin an education campaign among these mediocre performers on the bench.

A person I came to find unacceptable last year was Mr. Ravi Dev. His politics has become dangerously extremist in the ethnic context. The egregious manifestation of his new politics was his shameless endorsement of elected dictatorship of the PPP junta. Last year, Mrs. Jagan died and her daughter Nadira told the media that she hated the people who put down her mother. She went on to say that this is the way she feels. Guyana should thank its lucky stars that this woman is not living in Guyana and was walking inside the corridors of power.

The facts on Mrs. Janet Jagan, her daughter has totally blocked out of her mind. At the time of her death, she chalked up sixty (mind you, not sixteen) years in active politics in which she was President for three years. In those sixty years, some of the accusations against Mrs. Jagan, coming from some good Guyanese, were extremely disturbing. A few months back over dinner, the former husband of Gail Texeira told me that Mrs. Jagan carried out a vendetta against him because in an audience of hundreds of PPP members, he got up and openly rejected her proposal of Mr. Jagdeo as President. Six weeks after, she dismissed him as CEO Guyana Airways Corp. Thank God, Nadira Jagan lives in Canada and not Guyana.

Mr. Karran Singh was someone I came to dislike in 2009. I don’t hate anyone but I make no apologies for saying that last year after studying the management style of Mr. Karran Singh, I think he remains one of the worst public sector managers this country produced. There was no match for Mr. Singh in the PNC Government. Mr. Singh delighted in dismissing workers of a certain ethnic type. In one case, he reduced a family to tears when the sole breadwinner was terminated from his job after 32 years as a sewage worker. My appeal to GWI Board Director, Komal Chand was met with contempt. Mr. Karran Singh should face a public inquiry if the PPP loses the forthcoming national elections.

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