Robert Persaud keeps repeating a falsehood

Jan 05, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
I find it disingenuous that Minister Robert Persaud, among others, can keep repeating a falsehood so frequently in the press, hooping like Joseph Goebbels that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it” (http://thinkexist.com/quotation/-if_you_tell_a_lie_big_enough_and_keep_repeating/345877.html).
No Minister of Government should engage in such falsehood and I know the people of Guyana once given the facts will not be hoodwinked by such twaddle.
In this regard, Minister Persaud’s falsehood is that “…the defunct Guyana Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank (GAIBANK) which was established to lend to the farming community of Guyana but the funds were misused, forcing the institution to now close.” (See KN article, dated 1-4-2011 and captioned, ‘$220M small farmers’ credit programme kick started’).
In a previous reply to the Deputy Permanent Secretary Admin. Ministry of Agriculture on this very falsehood, I stated, and it has not been refuted with evidence by anyone, that GAIBANK was not closed because funds were misused.
Instead, and I quote from SN letter 12-22-2009: “The ill-advised closure of GAIBANK was the sole responsibility of the PPP/C Government which failed to implement the recommendations of Mr. S. A. Goolsarran, Auditor General of Guyana, in relation to foreign exchange losses that were Government liabilities and not GAIBANK liabilities.
“The Auditor General in his letters of 31-12-93 and 9-16-1994 supported his recommendations of dealing with the foreign exchange losses by invoking the Laws of Guyana, Section 50(2) of the Co-operative Financial Institutions Act, Chapter 75:01.
“Regrettably, the PPP/C Government ignored the professional advice of the Auditor General, which would have accurately reflected the profitability levels of GAIBANK that were in the hundred of millions of dollars, after all other operating expenses were charged to the appropriate accounts.”
Noting that all audited GAIBANK reports were laid in Parliament every year from the time the bank was established in 1973 to at least 1993 when Minister Asgar Ally was the PPP/C Senior Minister of Finance and our current President Jagdeo was one of his advisors (SN letter 12-22-2009); and recognizing that no accusation of fraud or mismanagement was raised by the PPP or any other political party, it would indeed be efficacious if Minister Persaud could produce the evidence to supports his claim of mismanagement and misused funds.
Otherwise, Mr. Editor, and in the interest of all Guyanese, we need to stop this falsehood.
C. Kenrick Hunte

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