Jagdeo offers no justification for PPP’s hiring of favored individuals

Jun 06, 2016 News

Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo was at a loss for words when asked to justify the hiring of friends and family of top members of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) while the party was in administrative power.
Auditors hired by the APNU/AFC government to examine the state of many government agencies after a PPP/C reign for 23 years, have told many sad stories.
Those experts spoke about missing funds, missing equipment, money misspent and fraud, among other things.
Another feature of the PPP/C government as highlighted in the reports was that the party offered various positions and even created positions for favored individuals. Those are persons with blood relations to top members of the PPP. Persons who displayed strong support for the PPP/C were also rewarded in this way.
The report on the forensic audit into the One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) project found that two children of PPP Executive Members, were given key positions without having the relevant qualifications.
A similar situation existed at the National Communications Network (NCN). There, forensic auditors found that the state entity employed 35 persons to work in a media monitoring unit that was run by PPP’s Information Liaison, Kwame McCoy. McCoy employed his sister-in-law to work at the unit as well as the relative of a PPP Member of Parliament and the daughter of former Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee—Renata Rohee.

Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo

Additionally, the forensic audit report into the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) which was controlled by the former regime also cited areas where favouritism was demonstrated towards PPP cohorts as the entity was found in several instances, not collecting revenue for certain frequency holders.
During a recent telephone interview with Jagdeo, Kaieteur News cited these instances.
The Opposition Leader was asked to explain why such a degree of favour for Party associates was displayed during his time.
Eventually, Jagdeo answered, “Well it’s all strange; it’s all pretty strange to me because I can cite a number of instances where the current administration is guilty of doing just what you explained.”
Jagdeo suggested that the current regime has hired a number of its “cohorts” to fill certain positions in various government agencies.
Jagdeo said that these positions were not advertised. He said that this took place in the Ministry of Finance and in the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA). The politician refused however to identify the persons to whom he was referring.
He added however, “Take for example what is going on at the Guyana Water Inc. They have Burnham son-in-law as the chairman and they never advertised for it and that for me is what represents a grave or gross obscenity against this nation.”
Turning his attention back to the audits, Jagdeo said that the reports are all grotesquely flawed. He said that this is mainly because the auditors failed to give those who were accused of doing wrong a fair hearing and a chance to have their responses included in the report. Because of this, the former President said he regards the forensic audits as nothing but a list of allegations which exemplify a clear bias against those who have been implicated.
“These audits cite a number of instances where the investigators perceive certain situations to be acts of corruption. My take is simply this, if you do an audit and you find that someone stole money for example; why not give them a chance to respond? That is their right. Let them explain the situation and if you are not satisfied with their explanation then you go through the necessary channels for pursuing prosecution.”
“But once you avoid giving the persons accused a right to reply and even when you do, you hide it then I can’t see how Guyanese can have confidence in the integrity of these audits. I think that the government should also stop doing a selective release of these reports and just release them all and let’s get on with this process.”

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2 thoughts on “Jagdeo offers no justification for PPP’s hiring of favored individuals”

Emile_Mervin June 6, 2016 at 5:03 am

Jagdeo continues to hide behind the wall of deflection by adverting to what others have done when confronted by questions of what he did or allowed to happen while presiding over Guyana. However, he has a valid point when he adverts to the existence of audits pointing out criminality (theft) during the PPP era, yet nothing is being done by the coalitionn regime to help prosecute the crooks who flourished under the PPP regime.
It may be only because folks don’t want a Jagdeo-led PPP back in power that they may likely turn out and vote in large numbers for the coalition if elections were held today, but the coalition could never run again on claims that the PPP was corrupt or will continue its corrupt ways if re-elected, because the coalition has questions hanging over its own head with only one year in power.
Quincy Bailey June 6, 2016 at 1:33 pm

I also agree let them answer the changes but in a court of law and let the chips fall where they may.

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