Freddie replies to Ralph Ramkarran and BK Tiwarie

Jun 07, 2015 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Mr. Ralph Ramkarran, in response to my column of June 1, 2015, rejects my statement that during the PPP’s 23 years in power, his law firm of Cameron and Shepherd, did complex and important legal cases for the state. He indicated that such situations were the jurisdiction of the Attorney-General; yet Mr. Ramkarran wrote in the next paragraph, the following words. “We (Cameron and Shepherd) currently represent the Attorney-General in one case and one is on appeal.”
Even a fleeting familiarity with grammar would inform the reader that if it is the Attorney-General that handles the complex and important legal cases for the state, then Ramkarran does that too, because he is representing the AG in two such matters, which comes from his own admission.
Mr. Ramkarran wrote: “We represent state agencies as distinct from the state.” Ralph Ramkarran spent over forty years in the PPP, so he came to accept the Marxist definition of the state, meaning the government and state security, like the army and police. In liberal terminology, the state is the total ensemble of public property. For clarification, the public health and education system is an integral part of the state.
Mr. Ramkarran began his reply to me by asserting; “These are not Mr. Kissoon’s first on the issue and will very likely not be his last…” This Ramkarran is dead right on that. Ramkarran does law; I do political and historical analysis. We both have our individual roles in society. In analyzing the PPP, its history, its time in government and the political contours of Guyana, I am sure as night follows day, I will include roles, actions and behavioural patterns of Ralph Ramkarran.
No one in this country that has read me the past umpteen years can deny that I have never put Mr. Ramkarran in a positive political context. I have always argued in my analyses that Ramkarran has been one of the PPP’s most enduring autocrats. If he didn’t have his ambition of being the PPP’s presidential candidate for the 2011 elections undermined by Jagdeo, Mr. Ramkarran would not have exited the PPP’s leadership. Even at the last moment in the 2015 election, he refused to endorse the coalition. How could he? That was unthinkable. It was not in his political genes to finally part with the PPP
Brian Tiwarie, in a long reply, did not take up his own challenge which he first issued in that rag, the Guyana Times. Now that the government has changed, I hope the Minister of Finance does a forensic audit to see if in the start up of the Guyana Times, concessions were given to that newspaper that should not have happened. If there is evidence then the paper should be surcharged
Tiwarie wrote that businessmen helped to build my home and he doubted that I would reveal that information. I wrote back and took up the challenge. I will do so publicly in the pages of the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News. I have gone so far that I would not even consult with these gentlemen before I openly identify them.
In return, BK Tiwarie has to enumerate the state jobs he got as against private contracts. It was Tiwarie himself who wrote that most of his engagements came from private businesses. I am disputing that. Mr. Tiwarie’s wealth came from state contracts he got from the twelve year reign of Bharrat Jagdeo. Most Guyanese would know more about that than even the name of the capital city of Guyana.
What was comical in his reply, were the following words, “Every major public infrastructure project awarded to BK was after there was a public tender published.” Here is my response to that, “Yea right!”
BK gave an example of where he lost a tender and the person who secured it did so using improper routes. BK needs to know a little bit on how incestuous politics operates in authoritarian systems like the one his friend, Bharrt Jagdeo operated between 1999-2011, the period in which BK’s wealth expanded.
In authoritarian systems, one favoured client can lose out because other powerful tyrants in the government have their own friends that they want to give a piece of the pie to. My second challenge to BK in my original response was to name the type of work Ramon Gaskin does for him and how long Gaskin has been associated with BK’s company. I did remind him that his loan from GBTI to buy the Tepuru quarry was a news item in the newspapers. I await BK’s further word.
In closing let me say what I chose to omit in my first letter. I have received many complaints from employees of BK of alleged industrial violations. Since I didn’t investigate, I cannot make pronouncements. By way of this letter, I hope aggrieved employees, if any, will contact me.
Frederick Kissoon

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