Jagdeo questions wealth of former army chief

Apr 23, 2015 News

Bharrat Jagdeo

– GDF’s commitment during crime wave

The endorsement of the Opposition coalition by former army chiefs ahead of the May 11 General and Regional Elections, has erupted in war of words with former President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday questioning the accumulation of wealth by one of them.
Jagdeo, in a more than one hour-long press conference at Freedom House, his party’s headquarters on Robb Street, to complain about negative media reporting, wife beatings and voting, also said that the army may have deliberately decided not to go after criminals during the crime wave of 2000’s.
Jagdeo was making his case as to why Guyanese should resoundingly vote against A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) on May 11.
He insisted that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) helped rebuild the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) after sweeping to power in 1992.
Waving the 1991 estimates of the National Budget, he criticized the then People’s National Congress (PNC) Government for a measly allocation of just $300,000 for capital works to the army. The PPP/C raised this to $7M in 1992. Today that amount is not even equivalent to the salary of a private soldier, he said.
Back then, former army chief, Brigadier David Granger, was the National Security Advisor.

Brigadier General (Rtd) Edward Collins

He said that under his Presidency and the PPP/C’s watch, Winston Felix and Henry Greene were appointed to head the police force. For the GDF, Brigadier General (Rtd) Edward Collins and Rear Admiral (Rtd) Gary Best, were confirmed. There could be no questions about discrimination, he said.
Both Collins and Best this week criticized Jagdeo and the PPP/C for dragging the army into the elections.
Both have endorsed the coalition whose Presidential Candidate is Brigadier (Rtd), David Granger.
In recent rallies, Jagdeo and other PPP/C leaders warned about the military and the elections.
Jagdeo said yesterday that Collins had objected to Best becoming the next Chief of Staff of the GDF but as President, he ignored those objections.

Rear Admiral (Rtd) Gary Best

As a matter of fact, Jagdeo claimed that Best had visited him at the Office of the President and complained that he was being sidelined. The former President said he was unwilling to go into details.
Jagdeo said he is puzzled as to why the former army chiefs, thinking that Government was bad, did not leave, especially if they were professionals.
“Why hold the top positions and take all illegal instructions that we were ostensibly supposed to be giving them?”
He said that as President, he never gave an illegal instruction to the police or army.
With an APNU+AFC Government, Jagdeo feared that Guyana will go back to those dark days when illegal instructions and party paramountcy ruled the day.
The role of Granger as a point man between the army and the Office of the President cannot be underestimated, he said.
The migration of top army officials to the Opposition is one that speaks of broken trust.
On the issue of crime and the army’s role, he said that he knows “tons” of things too but chose not to talk about it as issues of the GDF and the state secrets must “remain there”.
He believed that there may have been no real desire to go after criminals during the crime wave in the 2000s.
He said that Guyana suffered a lot and probably could have avoided the Lusignan and Bartica massacres and other incidents during the crime wave if the army was not “subverted”.
He challenged the coalition to report issues of corruption to the police instead of just talking about it.
Asked whether he was engaging in scare-mongering, Jagdeo said that migration of the ex-military chiefs –Granger, Collins and Best- to the Opposition speaks volumes.
With regards to the wealth of Best, he said that the former army chief lived next to him in Pradoville 2, Sparendaam, East Coast Demerara.
Jagdeo said it is a large, beautiful house.
With Best’s salary about half of a President, Jagdeo questioned how it was built. He invited the media to question Best.
The election campaign for May 11 has been described by commentators as one of the toughest for the incumbent PPP/C since 1992 with corruption accusations over a number of major state contracts and projects refusing to go away.