KN should use the Freedom of Information Act to request information on Jagdeo’s salary

Sep 20, 2015 Letters

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Dear Editor,
To the ‘Concerned reader’ who asked, “Is it that difficult to determine Jagdeo’s earnings versus accumulated wealth?” (KN, September 19),the answer is no. However, my follow-up question is: What would anyone in Guyana do if it can be proven his earnings were not the source?
KN may request that information through the Freedom of Information Act, but even if the coalition balks at the request, we can use basic logic to have an idea what Jagdeo earned and what he may be actually worth. Although former Attorney-General Anil Nandlall earned the second highest salary atGY$1.6m a month, the GY$597,000 monthly salary former Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee, said he earned may be the better standard by which we can help determine what Jagdeo earned as Junior Finance Minister and Senior Finance Minister in the 90s, using inflation to factor into the figures.
Without burdening readers with a hypothetical breakdown of my math, I would be generous in my estimates and say that over the course of Jagdeo’s active service in government, starting at State Planning in 1990 and ending in the presidency in November 2011, he legally pulled in a grand total of between GY$300M and GY$350M or between US$1.5M and US$1.75M in salary and allowances. It could be more, but with that kind of money, and living in State House and off the State, he should have been able to build his first mansion at Goedverwagting for US$100,000, which he never lived in.
That he then sold it for US$600,000 was an amazing piece of real estate feat given the house appreciated astronomically in a rather short space of time to the extent of an oceanic profit margin. We don’t know if he paid capital gains taxes on that profit, but why would the buyer, Trinidad-based advertising executive, Guyanese Ernie Ross, spend over half a million US dollars on a house in Guyana, even though he still lives and works in Trinidad?
I can show Guyanese photos of US$600,000 houses in parts of the US that make that Goedverwagting house look like a guest house. And in which country does a sitting President build a brand new house, never lives in it, and sells it to a diplomat he appointed to represent his government’s interests abroad? How is that not a conflict of interest that deserves a probe by the legislative branch, if not law enforcement?
Anyway, while Jagdeo probably could have afforded the US$100,000Goedverwagting house, it boggles the mind that the reason he offered for proceeding to clear away Sparendaam so he would build a second bigger ranch-style house at Pradoville II was because the first one did not have a library. What was wrong with an addition to the first house? The fact is he built two luxury houses while President of Guyana on his reported income and that is unheard of in the Caribbean.
Except for Forbes Burnham, who had his private Belfield residence and also spent time at his official Vlissengen Road residence, all of Guyana’s past presidents lived in reasonably priced private houses for many years. At the time of his death in August 1985,Burnham’s reported net worth was around GY$860,000 and the US exchange rate was around 4 to 1. That meant Burnham’s net worth was around US$215,000 in 1985,but while Burnham nationalized assets and placed them under his government’s control, Jagdeo sold off state assets to his best friends and then did hundreds of millions of US dollars in government business with his best friends and PPP-friendly contractors.
New GPC alone reportedly did over US$200M in government business the last seven years, and with overpricing or failure to deliver on hundreds of millions of dollars on supplies for which New GPC was paid, one can easily appreciate the magnitude of the wealth Jagdeo’s best friend accumulated since he acquired New GPC in 1999. Jagdeo may be a tricky politician, and he may well be worth more than the natural, naked eye can see, but he has to be reminded that everyone of Guyana’s past presidents left this earth with nothing in their possession.
And world history is replete with examples of rulers who became wealthy by ripping off their country’s finances and resources, even enjoying the influence purchased with the wealth taken illegally from the state. Some died and left everything. Others went to jail and lost everything.  In sub-Sahara Africa, three oil rich nations -Equatorial Guinea, Congo and Gabon – today represent what could have become of  Guyana had the PPP retained power with Jagdeo as Chairman of the National Economic Council and the oil find off Guyana’s coast had taken off with the help of the Chinese.
We have not even begun to scratch the surface of the iceberg of accumulated wealth from the state by corrupt politicians from the PPP era, but I urge readers to Google “Rich Presidents of Poor Nations: A story of oil and capital flight,” on triple crisis.com to get an idea what blatantly corrupt leaders have done to enrich themselves while their people suffered.
Editor, to me, Jagdeo should not be in Parliament, but before Commissions of inquiry into both pervasive government corruption and unsolved murders on his watch. Only after inquires, audits and probes are completed should he be considered as a candidate for Parliament or, God forbid, even a candidate for shared executive leadership in a unity government. But since the PPP picked him and kicked Donald Ramotar, and since the Granger-Nagamootoo regime seems strangely enamored of the unity governance concept featuring the Jagdeo-led PPP, then that may be how the cookie crumbles.
Nevertheless, Guyana can only hope and pray that wisdom prevails upon the Granger-Nagamootoo regime and allows them to make informed decisions that cater for preventing the government from reverting to Jagdeo-era practices that saw the rulers and their associates use political power to gain financial power while the ‘masses catch their asses’.
Emile Mervin

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