I urge the opposition not to vote for the anti-laundering Bill unless…

Mar 19, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The vexations between the PPP and the combined opposition over the money-laundering Bill should open the eyes of all Guyanese of what a self-destructive nation we have become. What this quarrel shows is that love of country is dead in Guyana among those whom the young should look up to.
These people are incredibly shameless. On the one hand, they cry that Guyana is heading for a major economic disaster which will be devastating. On the other hand, they want elected opposition leaders to morally abandon the hundreds of thousands who voted for them and submit to the sickening demands of a government that has nothing redeemable about it. But most reprehensibly, these sections of the society that want the opposition to pass the Bill see the opposition as idiots that have no dreams and ideas of their own.
Let’s start with the AFC. The AFC made a strategic mistake from the beginning with the Bill. It should have insisted that the Bill conform to the deepest core of democratic principles. Instead it said it will vote for the Bill if the Government implements the Procurement Commission. This was a piece of cake for those who wanted the Bill and given the AFC’s mistake, the Bill should have been passed months ago.
What the AFC is asking for is so elementary that for Guyanese stakeholders to avoid calling on the government to establish the procurement body is a shameless act of indecency. Leaving out the billions that PPP leaders and their friends have made through the absence of an effective monitoring mechanism for tenders, the commission is almost a commonsensical thing.
The commission takes away the passion of incestuous patronage from the PPP leadership in an area that is so vital to democracy. It makes for transparency in good governance. Why can’t any stakeholder that wants the anti-money laundering Bill passed, lean on the PPP to have the commission ASAP? Which is more disastrous – the absence of the Bill or the commission?
It depends on where you stand. For the business community, it is the Bill. So a compromise could have been pursued months ago. But no! The PPP must have what it wants because as Rohee puts it, the PPP was democratically elected. Well someone has to ram it down the collective throat of the PPP and the Private Sector Commission that the opposition was democratically elected to the majority in the National Assembly. If those who want the Bill to go through cannot see that the AFC mistake was a gigantic gift, then they are not fit to be part of a democratic world.
Next are APNU’s contentions. Here is where you see how selfish some humans are. APNU has a menu of choices it wants before it approves the Bill. The list includes local government elections and assent to Bills approved by Parliament, not the opposition Parliament (there is no such concept as “opposition Parliament;” Parliament is Parliament just as the presidency is the presidency). Why would any Guyanese not see the urgency of local government elections that we have not had since 1994?
Why would any citizen of this land including the bankers, insurance companies and other business folks not welcome the holding of local government elections? Who has what to lose in the perpetual postponement of these polls? The answer is no one, maybe except the PPP. So APNU says give us the elections and we will vote for the Bill. Recently something happened that showed us the real mischief makers in this country that the Private Sector Commission is so in love with.
Clement Rohee told the nation that GECOM is not ready to have the local government elections this year. The Local Government Minister also said that a majority of the population does not want the elections this year. Yet GECOM has told the Guyanese people it is ready.
Here again it is the nastiness of the PPP laid bare. You must pass the anti-money laundering, but we will not give you the local government poll. You must pass the anti-money laundering Bill, but we will not give you the Procurement Commission.
In other words, we the PPP are an elected government and we must get what we want.
In this madness of morbid inflexibility, some sections of the Guyanese nation, particularly the business community, insist that the opposition must put aside partisan interests and vote for the Bill. It is so contemptuous of the opposition and the Guyanese people that it is simply amazing how the AFC and APNU have kept their cool with these selfish stakeholders.

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