Over GY$60M for Jagdeo’s personal benefit versus GY$60M for Nagamootoo’s official use

Sep 27, 2015 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
Upon reading your news item, “Jagdeo performs gymnastics on Berbice Bridge…advocates government buyout,” (KN, September 26), it is obvious that Jagdeo lives in a world far removed from reality; perhaps a world in which he believes he still ‘calls the shots’ in Guyana. And while he may feel aided and abetted in this ‘bubble living’ experience by the coalition government’s desperation to coddle and cuddle him with Unity Government calls, it is up to the fiercely independent media and learned analysts to work to keep him grounded in reality.
I have previously written that the coalition blundered with the campaign promise to lower the bridge tolls without doing its due diligence homework of ascertaining whether the minority investors who sit on the bridge’s board would go along with the idea, even though the bridge would not be losing a dollar from the proposal. In my opinion, the bridge board’s resistance to the idea was based on it feeling slighted that the coalition made such a promise without first consulting it, despite the fact the government is the biggest investor.
Now that Plan A of lowering the bridge tolls has failed and Plan B is now in effect with water taxis, the government has to focus attention on making the water taxi business a truly viable – i.e., safe, reasonable and reliable – alternative to the bridge for passengers. Folks with vehicles and passengers in buses will continue to use the bridge, but it will be up to the minority bridge investors to determine whether it is feasible to continue operating or simply sell out by cutting their losses and moving on. Mini bus operators, meanwhile, simply have to adjust and seek to assimilate into existing routes.
Jagdeo apparently read and heard suggestions from others that government, with over 950 million special or preferred shares in the bridge, should consider a buyout of the minority bridge owners. I, too, originally supported a buyout, but time has helped me develop a realistic point of view:  The true cost of the bridge in its current state and life expectancy may not be worth a costly buyout.
In fact, true to his political trickster form, Jagdeo suggested the coalition could take 15%-20% of some GY$30B sitting in private accounts belonging to autonomous government bodies and buyout the minority bridge investors. That would be between GY$450M and GY$600M to the bridge investors who ponied up only a few million dollars. But note that he said absolutely nothing about the NIS as the major investor, and this is the kind of selfish and irresponsible thinking that informs Jagdeo’s  greedy decision-making that seeks to rip off Guyanese to benefit himself and his friends.
Editor, any buyout should take into consideration existing and potential debts to be incurred from loans and operating expenses, and given that the  NIS got nothing in return since2008, this coalition government should not be saddled with the debts incurred by selfish and short-sighted planning.
At this point, I think the coalition government should leave the bridge management alone and withdraw its idiotic subsidization proposal, because it is an insult to Guyanese intelligence and an assault on their finances that that their NIS money was used to build the bridge and now their tax dollars will be used to put subsidized money into the pockets of minority investors, while the majority investor – NIS – gets nothing at a time when the NIS has to be bailed out with emergency assistance from the Consolidated Fund.
It is one thing for Jagdeo to ignore the lunacy of his brainchild, but how can the Granger-Nagamootoo administration fail to see the quagmire they have walked into? It is the same mistake they are making with their Unity Government doltishness! Anyway, time to use the intransigency of the bridge management as an opportunity to beat a hasty retreat to better and more feasible ideas for alleviating the high costs associated with crossing the Berbice River.
Jagdeo , meanwhile, made reference in his press conference to the government setting aside $36M to subsidize the bridge company in face of lowered tolls but more than $60M was allocated to the Prime Minister ‘to fix up his house, buy furniture and a vehicle’. Why did he even think he should go there given that he alone cost taxpayers millions of dollars since he supposedly went into retirement in 2011? Even if the government spends GY$60M or US$300,000 to rehabilitate the Prime Minister’s residence and purchase vehicles, that is an investment by the government that will outlive the prime ministerial life of Moses Nagamootoo. He can’t take those with him when he demits office.
What Jagdeo deliberately ignores and folks need to be reminded of is the outrageous benefits package Jagdeo engineered with help from his PPP buddies in Parliament. In July 2014, the National Assembly was informed that the State had spent in excess of $45 million ($45,417,950) on Jagdeo’s light bill, transportation and security between December 2011 and February 2104 at an average of $1,682,146 per month. Between February 2014 and now, the overall costs may have exceeded GY$60M, but this is the kind of financial information that should require Jagdeo to engage in some self-checking before sticking is foot in his mouth.
I would like KN or any other media house to help readers find out if Jagdeo was reimbursed for the electricity bills he reportedly submitted to Parliament, because we learned recently that he had three transformers feeding his house with electricity but he, like everyone else in Pradoville II, did not have meters installed on their houses and were not paying electricity bills. If these people did not have meters and were not paying electricity, how can Jagdeo know how much electricity he consumed, and was he reimbursed for something he never paid for in the first place?
Emile Mervin

---

---