Oxymoronically speaking

Feb 28, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The people that form the leadership of the Government of Guyana do not deserve to hold the high offices that they do. Their level of thinking brings disrespect and ridicule from society. There are times when the main actors in the PPP Government should shut their mouths and just stay quiet whenever the press or the opposition stumbles upon a depraved policy.
It is downright stupid the way the Guyana Government reacted to the description of its pact with Ansa McAl as a secret. Is there such a thing as a public secret? I guess oxymoronically speaking. How can a document be public when no one knows about it and it has not been released for public scrutiny?
But this is what the Guyana Government has told the nation. It boggles the mind to know that Guyana has these people who are in charge of the administration of the nation’s affairs.
The Guyanese people did not know that their government had entered into an agreement with Ansa McAl to release 110,000 hectares of prime, untouched land in Canje, Berbice for ethanol production. We learnt of this from a Trinidad newspaper.
Reacting to the dissemination of that fact in this country, the regime leaders immediately exclaimed that there was no secret arrangement. How silly, how stupid! If there was no surreptitious plan then why wasn’t the population informed? From stupidity we go to madness.
The Guyanese people are told that it was in fact in 2010 that the administration employed an American company to seek investment in ethanol production and Ansa McAl won the contract. So why did we have to read in a Trinidadian newspaper that Ansa McAl is investing here? Why couldn’t our own government tell us that? But what about this secret culture that had enveloped the Jagdeo regime.
In an Indian newspaper, we read about huge acres of land in a forestry concession to an Indian firm. Mr. Jagdeo who loves to mouth-off all the time, did not mouth-off to the Guyana Times or the Chronicle or NCN that he landed a big investment from India.
Next we read in a Grenadian newspaper about interests of a Grenadian venture in the planned Marriott Hotel.
The President who loves to talk about his achievements all the time chose not to tell his citizens about the Grenadian angle in his baby – the Kingston hotel complex.
We move on to Jamaica. Again, a foreign newspaper informed Guyanese what Guyanese didn’t know was taking place in their own country – the Chinese company was extending the Timehri airport runaway.
Against this background of Jagdeo’s backroom deals, it was imbecilic for the present rulers to declare that the Ansa McAl ethanol project was not done in secret. This is a silly justification of Jagdeo’s abuse of power.
The question all Guyanese must ask themselves is where are the other conspiracies of Jagdeo and from which foreign newspaper will we learn about them. Is there a contract to build a new central prison? Is there an award offered to erect another university or cultural centre. Who tendered for these things? Is the police head office at Eve Leary going to Ogle where a brand new $200M structure will be erected? Who was the lucky builder?
Is the Chronicle moving to a swanky, new building costing $100M and which foreign venture copped the tender?
It is time Parliament set up a committee to search for Jagdeo’s hidden giveaways. After Ansa McAl who or what is next? There must be others. Looking for them should be the task of the parliamentary investigation team. Bharrat Jagdeo, when he was President, ran this state as if it were his private property.
Thousands and thousands of acres of valuable lands are parceled out to foreign firms and the nation was told not even a paragraph about it. What did Mr. Jagdeo have to hide?
Wasn’t Mr. Jagdeo proud that Ansa McAl was going to invest? Wasn’t Jagdeo proud that he got the Chinese to put money in the airport expansion? If the answer is yes, then why was he so afraid to inform the Guyanese people? Is there another reason? Does it have to do with under-the-table conspiracies?
For this reason we need as a matter of urgency that parliamentary probe team. It should not consist of MPs only but should seek to tap into the forensic skills of some of our brilliant lawyers.
My own personal opinion of the presidency of Bharrat Jagdeo is that Parliament should institute a criminal charge of abuse of power against him.

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