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I am not a man-kisser and have never been one
Apr 21, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
When I heard President Bharrat Jagdeo call me a self-confessed man-kisser, accuse the Alliance For Change of being associated with drug trafficking and castigate GECOM for buying from one source only, I thought that his jokes were stale. He could have chosen other digs that would have brought laughter.
There could be no other explanation – President Jagdeo was trying to be funny. He couldn’t have been serious. And he could not have meant these examples as part of political fight-back. If these were political rebuttals, they were downright comical.
In offering those reactions, President Jagdeo turned the spotlight on himself and his government. The moment he brought up those examples, he got people thinking in the comparative mood.
Let’s set the record straight on these three presidential observations and one would advise the readers to keep the comparative perspective in mind as they read along.
I have never been a man-kisser and in my entire career as a political activist there has never ever been a rumour about my sexual preference.
Some politicians have had that rumour follow them wherever they go. Not me, I married a girl from my ward, Wortmanville. I am going on to 32 years of marital status and we have a 20-year-old daughter.
The only time I spent away from the marital home was when I was in Miami in 1991 to have an eye operation and in Trinidad in 2000 for another eye operation. Those are the only times I have been away from my wife.
The facts show that Mr. Jagdeo will be getting close to his fifties when he leaves office. He has no children and no wife. At the time of writing I know of no common-law wife or steady partner of Mr. Jagdeo.
As a media operative, we know these things. But I must admit that doesn’t mean one is not there. If there is one, let me offer my apology upfront. I will not repeat the accusations Ms. Varshie Singh, Mr. Jagdeo’s common-law wife, laid against him.
Suffice it to say that I have never been a man-kisser. That label does not fit me. It can be applied to others including some people who do not like me, but certainly not to me.
Mr. Jagdeo pointed an accusing finger at the AFC, directly implicating that party in a relationship with drug traffickers. The drug link more applies to high-powered actors in the Guyana Government with Roger Khan. This is public knowledge.
The Ramsammy/Khan saga goes beyond suspicion. It goes beyond secrecy. It goes into the courts of the US where witnesses after witnesses have testified that Dr Ramsammy was Khan’s conduit in Guyana.
One has to be extremely moronic to think that a Minister of Health, not a Minister of National Security, can openly facilitate a drug baron by supplying him with state facilities and do so without informing his superiors. Such things only happen in fiction novels and in wild adventure movies.
My honest belief is that after the 2011 elections, the Americans may send down indictments for former key players of the Jagdeo administration. David Clarke has given the Justice Department information on powerful actors in the present regime. So did Roger Khan himself.
It was a rib-tickling joke to read President Jagdeo’s observation that GECOM is sourcing its materials from one avenue only. Can you believe Mr. Jagdeo? Why Mr. Jagdeo says these things is beyond explanation? Is he self-destructive?
Of course, he will not lose office by such shameless rhetoric but in some countries (particularly the US and Italy), he would face relentless and endless ridicule.
The press in many countries would have continued with their caricature until they run the leader out of office.
Is Mr. Jagdeo for real when he implied that GECOM may be in violation of propriety by its procurement policy of having one supplier? Even if that is true, Mr. Jagdeo should be the last person to make that indictment.
The procurement operations of the Guyana Government under this president are as ugly as when a violent riot breaks out in the Indian sub-continent. It was the international lending agencies that demanded a procurement commission which is still to be implemented and which this writer believes will not see the light of day under this Government.
My estimate (and the experts like Christopher Ram can work it out for the public) is that billions have been siphoned off because of these ugly procurement deformities. The corruption monster started out in the procurement laboratory after 1999. This procurement monster is still on the loose.
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