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The ubiquity of failure

Oct 15, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

If one should take a count of how many times columnists in countries like the US, France, the UK etc, write on their respective Head of Government, the figure would be high. No opinion-maker wants to keep his/her focus on the President or Prime Minister, but these people are so powerful that they make news every day.
I took a look at Trinidad under Manning, the US with Obama, and France with Sarkozy. My survey revealed that each day in those countries, commentators singled out the PM or President for specific analysis.
In Guyana, I say with unrestrained boldness, it is impossible to pen a commentary for four successive days without some attention being given to Mr. Jagdeo and the judgement will inevitably be harsh. I set out most days trying to avoid Mr. Jagdeo on this page. But I will never succeed. Mr. Jagdeo is too consistent a dictatorial, deceptive leader to ignore.
Then there is the perennial penchant of the President to utter sentences that are absolutely illogical or contain glaring fiction. When I read that Mr. Jagdeo said in Berbice that he would have to intervene personally to stop the widening Skeldon sugar factory fiasco, I honestly felt that Mr. Jagdeo’s contempt for the people of Guyana is simply getting uglier.
Don’t let us go to any Guyanese critic of the presidency as yet. Let’s travel over to Barbados to Rickey Singh. When Mr. Singh pens a castigation of Mr. Jagdeo, understand that he is talking the truth, because since 1992, Mr. Singh has been a shameless, sycophantic supporter of the Government and has endorsed Mr. Jagdeo with relentless servility.
In a column almost two years ago, Mr. Singh referred to Mr. Jagdeo as a ruler that armed himself with the maximum leader syndrome and is a president that micro-manages his Government’s functions.
This is Rickey Singh talking. What reason do we have to disbelieve him?  Any political observer in this land would tell you that Mr. Jagdeo’s micro-management style is not only known, but Mr. Jagdeo wants it to be known.
Where is the logic in that statement that he would have to personally intervene in the GuySuSo affairs to save the Skeldon factory? The evanescent fact that is large as the three combined rivers of Berbice, Essequibo and Demerara is that Mr. Jagdeo has been personally involved in the new dispensation at Skeldon from day one. It is doubtful that Mr. Jagdeo ever let even the employment of an engineer go past him since the Chinese started construction.
The population should know about a little detail that was frightening. Three years ago, a memorandum came to the Office of the Vice-Chancellor of UG from you know who, requesting a list of UG lecturers who defaulted in the early submission of their grades. I believe all readers understand what I mean here. My point is that micro-management is out of control, so it is laughable when you hear the oligarchs talking about getting involved directly.
Who was responsible for putting PPP people in the UG Council and retaining an incompetent CEO at the institution? Who called in the head of the Guyana Energy Agency, Joseph O’Lall, to his office and peremptorily fired him? Who was directly involved in the shake-up of GuySuCo’s leadership?
Who refused alternative suggestions about GPL that today have us enduring daily blackouts? Who was in charge of the economy when there was absolutely no growth rates from 1999 to 2005 and the tiny growth rate since? Who failed to stop CARICOM from signing the EPA document with the European Union? Where is the Marriott Hotel? Who refused a UK financial package to reform the Guyana Police Force that would have seen Scotland Yard officers at Eve Leary? Who caused the NIS to lose six billion dollars?
Against an ugly track record of failures, why do the little dictators pull themselves out of the ocean of disasters, then, announce that they themselves will have to intervene to save the nation and its seminal institutions from disintegration? You don’t need a university degree in political studies to answer that question.
I wager with anyone willing to take up my challenge that if a high school student with some interest in politics is pressed for an analysis, he/she would be on target. The oligarchs are running away from that river of monumentally grave errors over the decade. The subtle trick is to lay the blame on others. Just the other day, Minister Shaik Baksh blamed lecturers for the mess UG is in. President Jagdeo points to others who have messed up the Skeldon factory. These jokes have become stale.

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