Ramotar cannot read political tea leaves

Oct 29, 2015 Letters

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 Dear Editor,
I wish to enjoin the interchange between EU Ambassador to Guyana, Jernej Videtic, and former Guyana President Donald Ramotar, who clearly does not know how to read political tea leaves, hence his unceremonious and unimpressive exit from active politics.
Mr. Videtic clearly reiterated out the reason for the EU not releasing its taxpayers’ money late last year to a PPP government that had no respect for Guyanese, let alone regard for how it squandered their money. Yes, prorogation which became effective November 2014, was one of the reasons Mr.Videtic offered, because it ushered in a period of no parliamentary oversight for how the EUs monies for sugar would be spent.
And although Guyana was eligible for the last sum as per agreement months before prorogation, the EU was fully aware since July2014 of the pending no-confidence motion and vote in Parliament, which could have seen Parliament dissolved upon re-convening in November and new elections held within mere months. Why would the EU still go ahead and give Guyana money under those circumstances?
In fact, the EU was quite aware also that the reason for the no-confidence initiative, which triggered prorogation, was because the corrupt PPP regime, headed by Mr. Ramotar, disregarded Parliament’s voting down of line items in the 2014 Budget by illegally tapping into the Consolidated Fund and spending GY$4.5B on the very line items voted down. When the corrupt PPP government can disrespect the nation’s legislative body like that and illegally spend money, why should the EU trust the PPP regime with fresh money? Prior to all of this, we had none other than Komal Chand, President of the PPP union, GAWU, in June 2014, in a shocking demand for a full accounting of money given to the sugar industry before he could ever consider an offer of appointment to the Guysuco Board of Directors (Stabroek News, June 19,2014).
Mr. Chand who, days ago, ordered a politically-inspired industry-wide strike, said at the time that if then President Ramotar was serious about overhauling the industry, a full financial disclosure of the company was necessary. He reportedly noted that over GY$31B was handed over by the EU forthe industry to aid in its reform, and that while President Ramotar had declared the PPP regime gave more money to the industry than the EU’scontributions, he still wanted the President to disclose what the government gave and he would then ask the EU for a report showing how much it released to-date.
He then insisted that not all disbursements have been madeand opined that the management system was flawed, with the appointment of previous board chairman, Rajendra Singh as CEO, doing little to ease worriesover the management structure of the state-owned corporation. In all fairness to Ambassador Videtic, I cannot recall Mr. Ramotar ever engaging Mr. Chand in awar of words over the latter’s embarrassing utterances, given that GAWU is a PPP union and Guysuco was under the PPP’s control.
In 2013, then EU Ambassador, Robert Kopecky, sounded a strange warning about the PPP regime spending EU funds outside the specifically targeted sectors, and it was the first sign that the EU was actually monitoring what the PPP regime was doing with the money received.
Some believe some of the money had gone to education, but what was revealing was the now known penchant for the PPP to shuffle aroundmoney intended for one area to another area, sometimes violating rules, regulations and even the law. The GY$27M stolen in May from the GPL by twoofficials actually came from the PetroCaribe Fund set up for rice farmers. Who authorized that improper transfer?
Anyway, to be clear about the 25M euros that were supposedto be released before the end of 2014, Ambassador Kopecky clarified in Januarythis year that the withholding was based on ‘eligibility criteria’ and ‘budgetoversight’ issues (Stabroek News, January23, 2015). Frankly, it was the EU’s money and it was the EU’s call to make whether or not to release it. The same EU pumpedUS$145.9M into Guyana’s sugar industry between 2005 and 2013, and Guyana does not have to repay any of it.
Unfortunately, the ingrates running the PPP resorted to their usual cussing- down mode and started berating the EU while clearly failing to read the political tea leaves that showed the PPP government was facing a no-confidence vote whenever Parliament resumed sitting and the EU felt it would be unwise to pump fresh money into the system. As an aside, Guyana has an agreement with Norway for US$250Mover 5 years to preserve our forests, but even though Guyana reportedly met the criteria to qualify for payments, some of the money has been ending up in a special account held by the IDB to be released as that agency sees fit. Where was the political noise from the PPP?
Let me close on yet another enormous political blunder by Mr. Ramotar when he took issue with the Ambassador’s statements that the EU was responsible for overseeing the disbursement of the monies which comes from its taxpayers. “Perhaps he (the EU Ambassador) needs to be reminded that much of the wealth accumulated by Europe was built on the backs of enslaved and bounded labour, and as a result of the worst crime ever committed against humanity, leading to the very justifiable recent calls for reparations.”
Those words came from a man whose party enabled certain political players in Guyana to acquire unspeakable wealth from raiding the public treasury, pimping out our state resources and assets and on the backs of underpaid and undermined Guyanese, making it horrific because it was done by Guyanese. Mr. Ramotar just does not know how to read political tea leaves, which is why he is the utter political failure he has been.
Emile Mervin

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