The thing about Jagdeo that Clinton Urling wants to understanding

Jun 01, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I was about to step upon the podium to speak at an APNU-AFC campaign meeting on Station Street, Kitty when I got a call from Mr. Glenn Lall. I told him I would have to call him back. Glenn said he was in a discussion with others and the debate centered why Jagdeo had such formidable power over other PPP leaders. He wanted to hear my explanation.
Clinton Urling in a letter yesterday that must have caused cynical smile in all Guyanese who read it wrote that he cannot comprehend why Jagdeo is so powerful in the party. Urling’s piece on Jagdeo’s role in the just concluded election campaign has described what most analysts knew – he is the king who decides everything.
If Urling looks hard and devote some hours to studying the twelve years of Jagdeo’s hegemony, he would come to grips with the nature of the PPP leadership that Jagdeo came and met and the reality of who and what is the PPP. The most important thing to note about the rise of Jagdeo’s monarchy is that the leaders he met in the PPP after 1992 had the potential to become corrupt and venal and the potential to accept gifts and perks. But the situation wasn’t there for such instincts to come alive under Cheddi Jagan and Mrs Jagan.
Both Cheddi Jagan and Mrs Jagan were upset with high-level PPP cadres who were engaged in corruption but the Jagans were helpless to act. Mrs. Jagan remonstrated with the late Navin Chandrapaul over his alleged bribe-taking from OMAI gold company. When he built a mansion in Pradoville after just a few years as Presidential Advisor on the Environment, Mrs. Jagan refused to visit his residence.
With the rise of Jagdeo in the presidency, Jagdeo saw his chance of dominating the PPP through the use of state patronage. From the top to the bottom of the first tier leadership, from the top to the bottom of the second tier leadership, Mr. Jagdeo stuffed those personnel with enormous handouts that were handsome and prodigious. But Jagdeo was smarter than we gave him credit for.
You can give a man a car and he would be grateful but if you give his daughter a job, he would forever be grateful. What Jagdeo did was that he set about patronizing the families and relatives of the first and second tier leadership of the PPP. If a forensic audit is done on the complete scholarship programmes of the Public Service Ministry and all senior public sector positions with salaries that came from international organizations, one would be amazed at the pathological levels of incestuousness under Jagdeo.
One day I was at the arrival lounge at the airport waiting for my relatives, next to me was the current Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan. He described for me the type of persons in the entire public service that were in receipt of employment paid for by international organizations and foreign governments. They were part of a patronage system by the Jagdeo government.
It is public knowledge that while Jagdeo was President, Mr. Ramotar’s son and daughter held very high-paying jobs- the daughter was in charge of he USAID-funded Justice Improvement Project, the son, the fiber-optic cable project. The children of PPP big-wigs were awarded scholarships to top western universities; none went to Cuba.
It is also public knowledge that before Ralph Ramkarran parted company with the PPP, his law firm, Cameron and Shepard, did most of the complex and important legal cases for the state. While on the Council of the University, I argued for four consecutive years that UG replace Cameron and Shepard because its fees were too costly but I was rejected.
It was in the realm of corruption that Jagdeo sealed the fate of the entire PPP leadership. Ministers were falling prey to corrupt practices like mangoes from a tree on a Guysuco estate. Jagdeo used this in a brilliant Machiavellian stroke to create intense loyalty from every major first level and second level PPP leader.
Traditional mandarins and new comers in the PPP were building mansions with swimming polls with corrupt money. These monarchs were accumulating assets on a massive scale and Jagdeo encouraged it. I remember having lunch at the Grill on Thomas Lands with my very good friend, Bert Wilkinson. He said, “Freddie, I don’t know why y’all think the PPP care about losing power; they have money that can’t run out” Urling needs to know that. Jagdeo got his way and will get his way because wealthy PPP leaders are loyal to him.

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The thing about Jagdeo that Clinton Urling wants to understanding

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