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PNCR cannot be terrorised or bullied into submission
– Corbin
Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition, Robert Corbin, recently lambasted the current administration as being replete with corruption, adding that the slothfulness of the judiciary is affecting any attempts in the Court to seek redress.
Corbin was at the time speaking during his party’s weekly press briefing where he told media operatives that President Bharrat Jagdeo must, at this time, be consciously aware that there is the widespread national and international perception that his is the most corrupt administration since Guyana gained its independence.
He drew reference to the many reports by the World Bank and Transparency International among others.
He pointed to the 2007 Human Rights Report where the US Government commented on Guyana, “Governance indicators reflected that Government corruption was a serious problem…There was a widespread public perception of serious corruption in the government, including law enforcement and the judicial system…Low-wage public servants were easy targets for bribery.”
According to Corbin, there is no doubt that the Jagdeo Administration has purposefully and callously “visited on the backs of the rapidly growing army of pauperised Guyanese, a coterie of sheltered and highly corrupt officials and friends of the Administration whether they be drug lords or crime barons – at all levels and in every sector of the society.”
In his tirade against the administration he drew reference to the procurement process, infrastructural works, in the Ministries and Departments of the Government and in the Regions. “Yes, bribery and corruption is widespread and very well known…The favoured and protected officials and friends have continued to enrich themselves, through corrupt means, unfettered by any visible official sanctions or credible efforts to curb their activities.”
Robert Corbin
According to Corbin, the unparalleled levels of corruption and the blatant lack of accountability by the Jagdeo Administration is demonstrated in several scams such as the stone scam; the milk scam; the gold scam; the law books scam; the re-migrant duty-free-vehicle scam; the Cane Grove Conservancy Dam scam; the IAST scam; the wildlife scam; the export of dolphins scam; the Polar Beer scam; and now the GUYSUCO scam.”
The Opposition leader said that the situation in Guyana that those who have dared to challenge the system have been cruelly rewarded by officially sanctioned punishment. “For example, there has been the unwarranted dismissal of the Customs Officials in the Polar Beer scam and, very recently, the dismissal of Materials Manager, Aasrodeen Shaw, by the Board of GUYSUCO.”
Corbin said that the calculated failure by the Administration not to establish the constitutionally mandated Public Procurement Commission, which would have provided the needed transparency and fairness for Public Procurement activities, has resulted in the misappropriation of billions of taxpayer dollars and donor agencies funds into the pockets of relatives, cronies and corrupt contractors.
He said that when the PNCR called for “a forensic audit into the assets acquired by senior Government officials and corrupt business people, which bear no relationship to their incomes and earnings”, the regime unleashed the full force and venom of its well financed and staffed propaganda machinery against the Party.
“However, as even the arrogant and shameless Jagdeo Administration must recognise, the PNCR cannot be terrorised or bullied into submission…The Party owes it, as our moral duty and responsibility to the people of Guyana, to vigorously continue our campaign to expose the venality of the Administration.”
Corbin added that the reports by the Office of the Auditor General “have made absolutely no difference…The corruption express has simply gained momentum.”
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