No more ‘Jim Cock Bring Ram Goat’ excuses

May 30, 2012 Letters

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Mr Editor,
Firstly we must thank NCN for opening the door to the opposition for TV time, but it will be fruitless to debate unless we get the draft accounts and the cooperation agreement with NICIL and the PU.  Let us make it clear, we have a methodology as to how we arrived at the missing $50 billion figure and it is furthest from the truth what the NICIL Board members are trying to portrait.  But to protect our sources we have to “stan easy for now”.  More to come later!
So this $50 billion figure is no “pie in the sky figure” and we ask the Guyanese people to stay with this figure because the NICIL Board is yet to provide tangible evidence to the public.  The time is soon approaching when they will have to either “put up or go to jail”.  We presume they will try a Henry Greene on the legal system when their time arrives.  So much for justice in Guyana!
We know that there is a culture of secrecy surrounding NICIL operations, but in the gallery of public opinion, we are convinced in our conviction that Guyanese are predisposed that much is wrong with NICIL’s financial transactions and unless the Ramotar administration fixes this situation promptly, expect the beginning of the end. NICIL will be its Achilles’ heel.
The public debate at NCN has revealed that NICIL has US$3.5 million in cash but is committing US$19 million to the Marriott Hotel.  Where is the difference (US$15.5 million) coming from?  That debate confirmed that the NICIL Board has no problem with the real conflict of interest with a wife auditing a husband, and its CEO purchasing shares for his brother who resides in the U.S.  How more bizarre can this get?
Nothing has changed in this minority regime—nepotism, discrimination, patronage, and wanton corruption are still the order of the day. The new culture of “it’s our time now in the PPP to tek” is very much alive and well. When will the tekking end in the PPP?
This nation is in crisis morally, spiritually, economically and socially.  We were all under the impression that with the change in Government, the PPP would have swept the Jagdeo regime under the carpet and cleaned up its act.  But we are baffled at the energy being poured into maintaining the Jagdeo status quo.
The public record of the PPP administration’s statements and utterances on NICIL and other slush funds revealed a disturbing trend of apparent deliberate misinformation. As if this was not bad enough, the Attorney General claimed that NICIL operated within the law and he sees no conflict of interest.
Did Jonathan Brassington benefit from insider information?
The moral crisis gets worse when the Guyanese public learned that one  Jonathan Brassington was the beneficiary of a $225 million deal in Hand-in-Hand Trust soon after his brother, Winston Brassington, privatized that entity. This transaction reminds us of RAJ RAJARATNAM (the Bangladesh stock broker jailed in the US) who was found guilty of conspiracy and securities fraud crimes stemming from his involvement in insider trading in the United States.
Although some would have us believe that NICIL has only $700 million in cash and that all its transactions were legal, we in the AFC are not buying their “JIM COCK BRING RAM GOAT” story. We will continue to sensitize and educate the people, particularly the poor and the working class that it is the ultimate responsibility of the minority PPP regime to tell the nation what has happened to the remaining $49.3 billion. They ought not to shy away from their obligation. This is their moral responsibility.
With $50 billion of taxpayers’ money unaccounted for, with sugar production just over 60 percent of its target for the first quarter of 2012, and with no economic development plan aimed at creating jobs for the youths, the minority PPP regime has forfeited its right to govern.
It must be made unequivocally clear that if voluntary compliance is not enough to get the board of directors of NICIL to tell the truth about the missing $50 billion, then Parliament and the opposition must act to ensure that the enablers are held legally accountable for the reckless misuse and squander of the taxpayers’ money.
Only then will this delinquent behaviour of merely covering up for the “big fishes” will come to an end. Today, the poor and the working class whom the PPP has abandoned are the by-products of a vicious cycle—a cycle of theft, corruption and fraud which has been fortified by the regime—a regime that has not demonstrated the political will to effect change.
Sadly, the poor and the working class are left to fend for them selves and as they become poorer, the “big fishes” in the PPP are getting richer. One only has to reflect on the Stabroek News editorial of May 24, 2012 to get a reality check of what is happening in Guyana.
Let us use this opportunity to remind the Guyanese public that the World Bank’s Governance Indicators reflect that the PPP Government has a serious problem with corruption.
The reason is that in the past, the police have not demonstrated the will to touch the “untouchables,” so doubts will linger as to whether they have now developed the capacity to do so.
Can the people rely on the police to do their job? Only time will tell. Good intentions and political will may serve to arouse a perception of public interest, but that may be as far as it goes. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.
Dr Asquith Rose and Sasenarine Singjh

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