A call for President Jagdeo to account for use of public funds

May 22, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The survival and progress of this nation are dependent on our intolerance for what is wrong and standing up for what is right.
NAACIE held its 1st Triennial Conference Thursday, May 19th, which was addressed by President Jagdeo. As has become customary, the President resorted to his alter ego/comfort zone and delivered another of this infamous cuss out.
This time his target was the Guyana Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the Critchlow Labour College (CLC). When the Chief Public Servant has to resort to this type of communication with the public, it speaks more about who he is as a person and the quality of governance he delivers.
Evidently, his presence at NAACIE was that of a public citizen, and since we are paying him to work for us, when he is on our time clock and engages in unbecoming behaviour and actions, he must hear from us.
We, the people, via our tax dollars are paying President Jagdeo to do a job and when he fails to perform or conduct himself in a manner unbefitting of the office he holds, ours is the responsibility to let him know our disapproval. Consequently, we are duty bound to draw attention to them and give him an opportunity to correct same and when he fails to correct these actions, ours is equally the responsibility to see his removal from office on Election Day.
These are responsibilities we must take seriously and execute vigourously, without fear or favour. The President is our servant. He works for us and is paid by us. We do not work for him.
At the conference Jagdeo accused the TUC and CLC of financial impropriety, saying because the organisations have failed to account for moneys, that has caused the government to take away the subventions.
This is untrue and he knows this too! Further, the TUC and CLC are not accountable to President Jagdeo; they are accountable to the membership/owners and the law of this land, of which they are in compliance.
The subvention for the TUC was taken away because the PPP cannot get to control the body, and in the instance of the CLC, an Education Minister said that the college is used to get Black people into the university through the back door; completely ignoring the fact that Minister Robert Persaud got into the University of Guyana through this same door and so has it been for other PPP members and supporters.
As Chief Public Servant, we, the people, would like President Jagdeo to account to us for the use of our money, and today he is again called on to reveal the audit for the World Cup and Lottery Fund. Further, he is asked to account for the billions of dollars stolen from the Treasury as reported in the Auditor General Reports. These are the people’s money, Mr. President, and we call on you to give account for them, now.
The President informs the conference that the TUC wants to get rid of the government. The question I ask the President, what is wrong with this? The right to vote, which the labour movement fought for, is a very serious right which allows one to exercise one’s right to choice. It is a right Labour guards zealously and encourages everyone to exercise. This is a right President Jagdeo exercises and a right that others must equally enjoy.
This government has been the most rapacious and undemocratic, managed by a band of brigands, running roughshod over this nation.
The result has been the creation of a criminalized economy where narco trafficking comprises about 50 percent of the formal economy; inflation hovering at 6 percent; phantom squads murdered of hundreds of young men; massacres that include children and women; plundering of the treasury and raping of the nation’s resources; 1999 shooting of unarmed striking public servants; erosion of real wages and escalation in poverty; withholding of  government spending in areas the PPP does not control; stifling freedom of expression by withdrawing taxpayers advertising dollars, and driving fear into the populace; crime sprees; reducing the state media to a propaganda cesspit;  presiding over the division of the working class on race; destroys pension plans and the sugar and bauxite industries; erodes the value of the public service;  presides over the Great Floods and mass exodus of Guyanese labour; tramples the citizens’ rights, the Constitution and the rule of law; absence of a youth development policy; and high unemployment; to name a few.
This is the report card of the Jagdeo-PPP stewardship, a stewardship every sane Guyanese is very troubled about and Jagdeo thinks it is wrong to see an end to this!  What utter contempt for the people of this country to expect that we will stay silent as they go about creating a plantation society on the sweat of the workers.
As a people we must hold President Jagdeo and the PPP accountable. They have been given the privilege to govern and they have failed us miserably.
They have misinterpreted the silence and common decent courtesy as acceptance of the betrayal of our trust, the abuse of the people and plundering of our resources.
They have misinterpreted the huge remittance and barrels as our contentment to depend on the generosity of overseas friends and relatives and as our acceptance that we are happy with the pervasive poverty and deprivations.
They have misinterpreted the grills on our windows as architectural beauty, ignoring the fact that we have to use scarce resources to protect ourselves because even as they take our tax dollars they are failing to offer us proper security as they drive around with increased security personnel we are paying for. They have taken our amiable nature as an acceptance of their tyrannical stewardship.
They have been treating us as second-class citizens in our own land, stealing from us, failing to protect us, and squandering our resources. Ours is a right and responsibility to tell them enough is enough!
Lincoln Lewis

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