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Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar were right on what they said about me

Mar 15, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

It is doubtful the leaders of any other country speak the daily nonsense as that which comes out the mouths of those in the PPP leadership. An entire column can be devoted to just two recent pieces of idiocy mouthed by Donald Ramotar last week
First he said he will not participate in any presidential debate if the arrangements and format are not made by his team. Should one comment on such foolishness? Simply put, Mr. Ramotar is saying that he must decide in a game of cricket who will be the umpires.
Secondly, Ramotar indicated that if those who blame the government for the assassination of Courtney Crum-Ewing cannot supply the proof, then they are guilty of inciting. In other words, citizens cannot offer their opinion on who was behind Crum-Ewing’s murder.
But it was Jagdeo who outshone Mr. Ramotar for incredible nonsense. And the media allowed him to get away with it. Mr. Jagdeo at his press conference last week showed in graphic details why this country is living in the ashes of mediocrity as a 10th rate country.
Arguing for the legitimate expansion of the wealth of his friends, Mr. Jagdeo said years ago, he didn’t see so many cars on the road. Years ago there wasn’t Nigel’s Supermarket. In other words, there is wealth creation, so why focus on his friends. The pathetic nonsense in that submission was so overbearing that the media should have jumped on Jagdeo and stripped him bare.
The difference with Nigel’s Supermarket and the owners of those cars is that the money didn’t come from the taxpayers but his own. Mr. Johnson, owner of Nigel’s, toiled away as a Bourda Market vendor all his life, then, bought his Robb Street supermarket with bank loans and not a cent from the Government.
Teachers, soldiers, UG lecturers and civil servants are driving cars bought with bank loans, not from government’s money. You can count on your finger, the private contracts Brian Tiwarie gets. His contracts, thus his wealth, came from the twelve-year reign of Mr. Jagdeo, and he is still getting more under Ramotar.
You can count on your fingers, the private jobs Bobby Ramroop gets. His procurements, thus his wealth, came from the twelve- year reign of Bharrat Jagdeo and he is still getting more under Ramotar. Mr. Jagdeo knows, the reporters who were present at his press conference know, and the whole of Guyana knows that Bobby Ramroop doesn’t face any serious type of competition to supply the Ministry of Health with goods.
This columnist was told an interesting story. A close friend of Bharrat Jagdeo took a bank loan of two billion dollars to buy a quarry. He then got a three-billion-dollar contract from Mr. Jagdeo’s government to supply stone. He instantly paid off the loan. I don’t know if the story is true, but this was what was alleged.
Mr. Jagdeo said he bought his house, sold it, bought another one and people criticize him for so doing. So he asked the question why after twenty years of public service, he cannot own his own house. Mr. Jagdeo is not foolish. He is simply trying to fool the Guyanese people. It is not home ownership in itself that is the focus. It is the type of mansion you build that raises suspicion.
After twenty years of academic employment at UG, I couldn’t buy a proper home befitting an academic. When I did in 2006, in that same year at the anniversary of Dr. Jagan’s death at Babu Jaan, President Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar publicly stated that they knew businessmen helped me to build my house. Donald Ramotar went a step further. He wrote a letter in the Kaieteur News repeating his accusation.
It wasn’t an accusation by Mr. Ramotar. He and Jagdeo were right about the purchase of my home. I did receive generous help, because I simply couldn’t buy a proper lower-middle class home with my salary from UG after twenty years of continuous service. How did some of Mr. Jagdeo’s acolytes in the PPP leadership build theirs when they didn’t do so before, and only after they entered the government of Bharrat Jagdeo?
Finally, the “coolie” statement of Mr. Jagdeo. No circus could be larger than the continuous one in Guyana. Jagdeo repeated at his press conference, a comical utterance he made at Babu Jaan days before. He claimed that if any East Indian in the party had made a racist statement against African Guyanese, the type of which opposition politicians made against “coolie” people, they would have been expelled.
Do we need to comment any further on this joke?

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