When morality becomes ignorance people become fools

Aug 17, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

One day a group of senior KN staffers were liming outside the office. A small businessman drove up and began to chat with us. I can’t remember what the topic changed to but he turned to me and said that only Peeping Tom seems to be dealing fiercely with the PPP Government’s questionable use of money and I should be like Peeping Tom.
This man was totally oblivious to the fact that Peeping Tom was a phantom and to compare him with me raised questions of morality. Last week, a fictitious writer, M. Maxwell wrote that I have written a column every day since the new government came into power and he/she cannot find any article of mine that criticizes the Granger Administration even though the Granger Government has gone into a dictatorial direction and has violated the Cummingsburg Accord. Sensibly both independent dailies did not publish Maxwell’s letter for obvious reason of hypocrisy that involves questions of morality. Maxwell was deliberately being unethical because he/she was hiding behind a mask when he/she asked me to condemn the Granger administration. So I must be in the open but not Maxwell.
M. Maxwell ended his/her letter by asserting that. M. Maxwell is not the problem but Freddie Kissoon is. I don’t know why I am the problem and not M. Maxwell. I brought up the question of moral values because this is an area of life that Guyanese have a terrible record on. Maxwell obviously sees absolutely no moral contradiction in calling upon another citizen to go bravely and criticize a three month old government while he/she uses a pen name. Relevant here is the statement Pauline Sukhai, former Minister of Amerindian Affairs made about the $2.1M she received from the Treasury for her dental work. Ms. Sukhai made some appallingly moral lapses. First, she said the dental work was a private matter.
How could it be a private matter when it was paid for by taxpayers? When John Jones suggests that I pick whichever car I want and he will pay for it and he pays for it, then that is a private matter. It was John Jones’ money. When the Government suggests I go and pick which car I want and I choose a Humvee, then moral issues arise because the people’s money is being used for me to drive a luxury car. Ms. Sukhai went on to state that she was entitled to the money. What Ms. Sukhai does not understand, and there are dozens like her in the PPP, is the moral context in the use of a country’s resources.
Could a poor country afford to offer two million dollars to a Minister to do dental work when students have to endure leaking roofs in their classrooms; two patients have to share the same bed at the Georgetown Hospital; policemen have to work in small offices without modern conveniences? In Singapore, that expenditure on a Minister’s mouth would be fine because police, nurses, university lecturers etc work for whopping salaries in an ultra modern, rich economy. Guyana is billons of miles behind Singapore. It appears that Sukhai in defending the money for her teeth failed to see the context in which he received the funds.
Pauline Sukhai is not the only one that personifies the ignorance of the past PPP Government; all the leaders of that fallen regime think like Sukhai. According to the Minister of Finance, speaking in Parliament, Jagdeo as part of his post-presidential package put in a travel claim last year for first class travel valued at $7.4 million. Could a poor country like Guyana spend $7.4M on just one flight for a former President who is in no way connected to state employment? In other words, Jagdeo was not traveling on state business. When a Prime News reporter questioned Jagdeo during Jagdeo’s press conference at Freedom House on the expenditure, his answer was similar to Sukhai’s.
For Sukhai, nothing was wrong with spending $2.1 million of taxpayers’ money on her teeth. For Jagdeo, it was the same reasoning. The nation will no doubt hear more of these shocking revelations as the new government gives us more information on the horrendous use of state resources by the PPP leadership when it ruled Guyana. But if there is anything we can predict is the response of these PPP leaders to the sordid revelations of the use and abuse of taxpayers’ money. The little dictators that have fallen will see nothing morally wrong with the mountains of perks they accumulated. Such ignorance only leads the nation to see them as fools. But do they care how we see them?

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When morality becomes ignorance people become fools

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