AFC says…Highest level of executive lawlessness

Feb 22, 2013 News

No action yet against NCN, NDIA officials…

Eight months after ordering an investigation at the state-owned National Communications Network (NCN), President Donald Ramotar has still not taken action against officials who may have been involved in wrongdoing.

President Donald Ramotar

Yesterday, the Alliance For Change (AFC), one of the two opposition parties in the National Assembly, described the delay as the highest level of executive lawlessness.
According to AFC’s Member of Parliament and Executive Member, Cathy Hughes, the NCN issue is similar to that of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) in which an audit report recommended the immediate dismissal of two senior officials.
Regarding the NCN matter, President Ramotar had said that the report was engaging his attention and he would be addressing it.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon, an official government spokesman, recently said that the matter is still engaging the attention of the President.
Hughes, during her party’s weekly briefing yesterday, pointed out that the deposit of company money into the personal bank account of NCN’s Production Manager, Martin Goolsarran, is not an allegation.
Rather, “there is evidence that this fraudulent transaction did take place. In any other society, those responsible would have been behind bars. For the President to sit on the report from the audit firm while the perpetrators are still being paid by the company or allowed to go free, places the President in a position where he is clearly condoning executive lawlessness.”
Goolsarran has been on suspension since last June while Chief Executive Officer Mohamed Sattaur has resigned.
The opposition has claimed that the government is reluctant to take action because of the closeness that the two executives have with the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic.

NDIA’s CEO, Lionel Wordsworth

THE NCN PROBE
Hughes went further. “If President Ramotar is disinclined to take action in his capacity as President, he is honour-bound as Minister of Information to ensure that the state-owned and government-controlled NCN operates above board and in such a clear case of irregularity, he should have immediately called for those named to face the full force of the law and let the chips fall where they will.”
NCN operates the state’s television and radio stations and has been the focus of the opposition’s wrath. They have accused the entities of being biased in their coverage. AFC has even said that NCN has been refusing to carry their advertisements.
Regarding NDIA, the MP said that an audit on fuel consumption and equipment operations and maintenance, was conducted between May and September.
NDIA is an agency under the Ministry of Agriculture that manages the water conservancies on the coastlands.
“It was completed and submitted to the Chairman of the NDIA Board of Directors on September 26, and carbon copied to President Donald Ramotar. Five months on and the President has failed to clean house,” Hughes said.
The auditor, however, has reportedly instead been sent home.
“These clear-cut and proven cases of financial irregularities at two government-controlled entities have placed Guyana in a very embarrassing position. This is compounded by the fact that the persons named, either continue to work in the agency with the opportunity to continue their illegal behaviour or they are given a slight tap on the wrist and sent off to perpetrate such acts elsewhere. They are not made to pay for the wrong they did.”
The AFC official said that while the AFC remains committed to working with President Ramotar and his administration to

NCN’s Programme Manager, Martin Goolsarran

move Guyana forward, “we remind him of remarks he made to his new cabinet in December 2012, ‘…our nation’s wellbeing should always be our most important guiding influence’ and call on him to lead by example and put this nation’s well being ahead of protecting cronies.”