A glaring case of disrespect for the new government

May 31, 2015 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

Guyana Sugar Corporation continues to be a major talking point. Less than two weeks after the new government took office the Board of Directors of the sugar corporation announced that there was no money and that the only option was to cease operations.
There is nothing wrong with a company choosing to go to the wall but in this case, it was the manner in which the announcement was made. There was no discussion with the political directorate. It was as if the sugar corporation was a private company and the decision was being taken by the owners.
If ever there was a show of disrespect for authority this was the most blatant. The Minister with responsibility for the sugar corporation, Noel Holder, later said that he could not understand the declaration. He said that he got no notice.
My simple conclusion is that at some point the new government when it was in the opposition, had taken a look at the sugar industry and had concluded that the best thing might be to close operations. The decision by the Board was intended to put sugar workers against the government and so secure a deep-seated hatred among these workers for the new government. In short, it was a case of holding the government over the barrel.
That the Board still remains in place is surprising. No government would have tolerated such action. In the first instance, there is no budget so that disbursements could legally be made to the sugar corporation. But there are other questions.
For example, just before the elections the government of the day announced that it was selling the power generating section of the Skeldon sugar plant for US$30 million. The sale was being made to another cash-strapped institution, the Guyana Power and Light.
I have since learnt that US$20 million went to the sugar corporation a few weeks ago and there is no trace of that money. Where could it have gone? Last year the sugar company petitioned the National Assembly to get a $6 billion advance. It literally broke hands to get that money and it did get it.
Simple mathematics would reveal that the sugar company therefore got at least $10 billion, in addition to the money it got from selling sugar on the world market. I would not want to say that there have been widespread irregularities.
There is need for a forensic audit of the operations of the sugar industry. This was an entity that the previous government had announced a series of turnaround plans for, over six years, and none has worked. Instead, GuySuCo has turned out to be sort of bottomless pit for state funds.
Then there is the issue of former President Bharrat Jagdeo being confined to Guyana unless he secured the permission of the courts. Of course he has petitioned the High Court to have the restriction lifted as is his right.
But some things followed the decision by the magistrate. Immediately the PPP resurrected the ghost of Forbes Burnham. It concluded that the decision by the magistrate was a resurrection of the Burnham days. That was a blatant disrespect for the magistrate. For one, the PPP has accused her of taking political directions when there has been no contact between the political directive and the magistrate.
It is a pity that the political party is not a legal entity because the magistrate would have hauled its leader before the court for contempt.
Then there was the suggestion that Jagdeo’s rights were being denied under the constitution. This forces me to ask about those people who were repeatedly asked to lodge their passports with the police pending the outcome of the trial. I never heard about the constitutional rights of these persons being violated. It just goes to show how selective people could be.
Yesterday, I got word that the High Court lifted the order against Jagdeo, again as is its right. Someone contended that the magistrate overstepped her bounds. Poppycock.
The bottom line is that some people insist on different rules for different people. Had a magistrate restricted Adam Harris from travelling I am willing to put my head on the block that no one, not even those who have risen to Jagdeo’s defence, would have uttered a word.
There is another thing that I must mention. It has to do with the missing assets. I remember back in 1992 the new government came in and accused the outgoing administration of all manner of corrupt things. It went to court to repossess two vehicles that President Desmond Hoyte had signed over to some staff members.
The court ruled that as president, Hoyte was within his rights. This time around I got a glimpse of a document that suggested that more than 20 vehicles were transferred to people. None of these transfers appeared to have been sanctioned by President Donald Ramotar.
Most of the transfers were effected on May 6 and May 7. In one case, Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon transferred one to his brother-in-law. Perhaps time dims the memory. If the then PPP government considered vehicle transfers wrong then, why should it make those transfers today?
Irregularities abound and most involve money. I am told that the authorities have already found billions of dollars in some account controlled by the Housing Ministry. If that is indeed true, why then would the Ministry seek $3 billion from the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission?
As fate would have it, some semblance of discipline is being reintroduced to the government.

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