How could anyone debate the PPP on corruption when that party denies access to full information?

Aug 22, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
These debates on corruption are becoming a tired exercise. First we had the NICIL debate, where the opposition went in blind, because NICIL failed to provide and continues to fail to provide any information. The opposition was arguing from accounts that were last filed some seven years ago while NICIL was arguing based on selective information it would not produce to the public.
To date, NICIL has not filed updated accounts despite the promise that these would be filed shortly. These debates are nothing but an attempt by the PPP to minimize the scourge of corruption in this country. It is an attempt to sanitize itself with some of the most childish arguments by debating an opponent which had to debate it (the PPP) blind because the same PPP controls vital information.
NCN did a probe that found serious wrongdoing and it did not release its report to the public, despite NCN being a public entity.
How could the opposition debate the PPP on corruption when the PPP itself finds corruption and buries it or takes wholly inconsequential action with respect to it? An NCN staffer was sent on leave with a slap on the wrist. In any other country, he would have been hauled before the courts, charged and if proven guilty, jailed.
The opposition shows up blind, deliberately denied information because of a rank system of cover-ups, camouflage, malpractice, poor record-keeping, incompetence and financial shadiness. The PPP then cries ‘show me proof’, knowing full well the opposition cannot do so because it cannot even publicly access basic records for some of the most corrupt entities in Guyana run by PPP rogues.
If the opposition is going to participate in these debates, they have to constantly remind the public during these sessions of the very position of weakness they are debating from because they have been denied information. They should inform the public that when the PPP cries for ‘proof’, it is the PPP that blocks and impedes the public from getting proof.
This PPP argument that the people cannot argue corruption without lack of evidence is hogwash. If any corrupt government fails to release information that soothes the public trust or actively buries that information from seeing the light of the day, it is an act of corruption. Hiding information from the public that any reasonable person would conclude is necessary for public viewing is corruption. For the hiding of that information is tantamount to hiding corrupt practices. Case in point is the recent NCN probe. If this was done in a clear-cut act of criminality, why should we believe it is not being done every single day in every government agency and department?
Hiding that report means burying corruption. In a country where every two-year-old knows this is a government and a government bureaucracy of thieves and crooks, the more information is denied and sheltered the greater perception becomes reality and reality and perception have intersected when it comes to corruption in Guyana.
The small minority who do not thieve will be lumped with the majority that do pillage this country. The PPP sees these televised debates as a forum to put forward its backward, childish and illogical arguments and then try to spin those to the public in the hope it can fool and re-fool Guyanese.
All of these debates will have one strident nonsensical theme from the PPP – ‘show me proof.’ The PPP has nothing else but to hide behind the ‘proof’ game. It has created such a cesspool of failed record-keeping that people cannot even be caught unless they brazenly take company money and put it directly into their bank account and even with that proof, they walk away scot free.
The PPP thinks the Guyanese people are dumb. That if they repeat these foolish and simplistic defensive approaches several times during TV debates, people would fall for it and buy it. The Guyanese people know about the PPP’s outlandish banditry and no debate will change anything. It is laughable that NCN of all places where one of the biggest scandals was recently exposed is hosting this masquerade.
M. Maxwell

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News