APNU will never be forgiven if it votes with the PPP without securing the Public Procurement Commission

Jul 11, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Minister of Legal Affairs is quoted in the Stabroek News as saying that the “Government is counting on APNU to get money laundering amendments passed”. The Minister must be the only person in the country that believes in that “clap-trap”.
What the people of Guyana now know, thanks to the Alliance For Change (AFC), is that since May 2011, the PPP Government was well aware that it needed to get these amendments into law along with setting up a system to trap and capture the Money Launderers. Only when this is done will Guyana be in compliance the rules of the international community.
To wait until April 2013 to take action on this Money Laundering law and totally ignore the “trap and capture” system is most devious of the first law officer of the Government of Guyana. Such economy with the truth is a monstrous act of injustice from the PPP against the people of Guyana.
What these actions suggest is that the Ministers of Finance and Legal Affairs are essentially unfit for leadership at the highest levels; they abandoned their desks for the studios of NCN to peddle their fairy tales to the people expecting the people to follow them. But they have no credibility and thus not the people and even the international community trust them anymore.
This Government is now rendered into a lame duck administration because of all the dishonesty. These acts of the PPP Ministers are incompatible with democracy. As the Constitution says “sovereignty belong to the people who exercise that power through all of their elected representatives”, not only Ministers of the PPP.
We were fortunate to have read two masterpieces for articles authored by the Leader of the AFC, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan captioned the “Our Archdukes of Unprincipledom” which shattered all these PPP myths. (https://kaieteurnewsonline.com/2013/06/30/our-archdukes-of-unprincipledom-ppp-and-procurement/) and (https://kaieteurnewsonline.com/2013/07/07/our-archdukes-of-unprincipledom-part-2/) The AFC Leader rightly pointed out it was the PPP, 10 years ago, who piloted this Procurement Law in its current structure that established the Public Procurement Commission in this form. But when the unprincipled PPP realized they would not get any more grease, they backpedaled. They were not prepared for an independent Commission to de-construct all the Ponzi scheme contracts parceled off to their best friends.
The PPP was not prepared to replace a best-friend-only system with one that respects competitive awards based on best practices in the procurement industry.
From what we can see from this debate, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan is leading his party, while President Donald Ramotar follows his Ministers. There has been no discernible change in the PPP from the Jagdeo regime to the Ramotar administration; just more of the same policies but executed in a worse and more divided fashion.
The white flag in the PPP is showing as they drop to their knees to beg the APNU/PNC for support on money laundering. Well, the PNC has to be extremely naïve to not recognize the blatant money laundering deals, and until that is stopped, they will be unprincipled to be supporting any anti-money laundering legislation.
The APNU/PNC leadership is fully aware of the political risk in joining the PPP on this vote without securing the Public Procurement Commission. The facts are, Guyana is losing some G$15 billion a year to corruption, kickbacks and fraud, because we do not have a Public Procurement Commission. That is G$15 billion less to spend on the roads in Linden, Lodge and Lima. The people will never forgive APNU if it votes with the PPP on this one without securing the Public Procurement Commission.
Dr. Asqutih Rose and Harish S. Singh

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News