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Guyanese can’t be happy with this new Cabinet

Dec 07, 2011 Letters

 

Dear Editor,
A look at this Cabinet chock full with Jagdeoites makes it clear that Jagdeo still has tremendous influence. Just last week I asked for the sake of Guyana that President Donald Ramotar get out of the shady shadow of Bharrat Jagdeo. This Cabinet tells me he hasn’t.
This reshuffling of a deck of usual Jagdeoite suspects will not work for the Guyanese people who just a week ago said loud and clear that they wanted change. Even worse, it does not work for the PPP supporters who sent the PPP a clear message to clean up its act last week.
Well, I guess this is President Ramotar and friends showing the PPP supporters who really is boss. After all, these are the same Ministers and bigwigs who ran a country rank with the stench of corruption, waste, wrongdoing, incompetence and mismanagement. They get rewarded for a job poorly done.
These are the same guys who suspended a general congress to deny PPP supporters the freedom of expression and the right to vote.
I tend to read between the lines looking at these appointments. I am shocked to see Robert Persaud still ‘running’ something. Has this guy ever succeeded at anything, MBA and all? He ran the PPP campaign where the PPP spent more money and used state resources equivalent to probably our entire 1992 budget and yet failed to get a majority. Robert Persaud likely remains because he is Bharrat Jagdeo’s family by marriage. This is the kind of gut wrenching cronyism that kills this country.
That new Natural Resources and the Environment Ministry created just for Robert Persaud is intended to maintain a certain individual’s influence through his proxy over the precious resources of this country and over arguably three of its biggest potential cash cows in hydropower, LCDS and offshore oil.
Beware people of Guyana, beware. Similarly, Juan Edghill, the so-called ‘bishop’ who has no economics degree like Mr. Ramotar and who seems to know what Jesus will do and who he votes for, gets the junior Minister of Finance position.
Maybe he will get divine inspiration to figure out how to fit his square peg self in that round hole at the Finance Ministry. I an inclined to say this was another deliberate move intended to put another crony near the money.
Leslie Ramsammy in agriculture is another disaster after Robert Persaud failed there. I hope Ramsammy knows the bag he is left holding when the EU will likely cut Guyana adrift of preferential pricing in 2013, which will devastate the sugar industry.
Is that the Anil Nandlall who represented Jagdeo and has been dominated by Nigel Hughes in the Jagdeo versus Kissoon and Kaieteur News case who is now Attorney General? Former Office of the President bigwig and Jagdeo confidante, Dr. Nanda Gopaul’s appointment as a minister is another clue to what is now a serious sign of ‘who ah run things’.
The last remaining test will be how hard Ramotar fights for the preservation of Jagdeo’s pension plan in Parliament when the opposition tries to change it. Ramotar cannot be an agent for change as long as Jagdeo’s influence predominates.
Since this election, I’ve been reading the Guyana Constitution. Article 111(1) commands the President to “act in accordance with his own deliberate judgment” when making decisions which includes selecting a Cabinet. Maybe one of those big shot lawyers in Guyana could explain to me whether the President can be removed from office if evidence is provided to prove he is not acting under his own deliberate judgement, he is excessively reliant on others to make basic decisions and is being unreasonably influenced by another individual or set of individuals.
Wouldn’t that be a betrayal of the voters’ trust and an assault on the integrity of the Constitution and the office of the presidency?
M. Maxwell

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