Morally irredeemable Guyanese politicians

Sep 18, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Living in Guyana is not for the decent minded. Having to bear up with the relentless hypocrisy, immorality and depravity of the PPP leadership cannot be an achievable task. At some point the mind will be unable to soak in the quotidian nastiness and become sicken. Pick up any newspaper and there you will see letters by powerful leaders in the PPP who had formidable quantities of raw power for almost 23 years.
Heading the list of frequency is the current Secretary of the PPP’s executive committee, Hydar Ally, followed by Anil Nandlall and former President Donald Ramotar, followed by Gail Teixeira and a few others.
Pick up the newspaper for any given day and there will be reports on press conferences held by Clement Rohee and Bharrat Jagdeo. The refrain is identical to the PPP letter-writers –- lamentations on the violations of democracy, lack of accountability and transparency, incestuous politics, discrimination and corruption in the Government of the APNU+AFC Coalition.
The entire picture is one of surrealism. Are we living in the real world when we see these accusations of the PPP? Could it be that it is all a mirage, a phantasmagoria of imaginary nightmares? The frightening truth is that everything is real. The People’s Progressive Party beginning with Dr. Jagan himself in 1992 ran an undemocratic machine that reached its pinnacle of debauchery, racism, corruptibility, kleptomania , egomania, and philistinism under Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar. When the PPP leaders speak of favoured jobs for APNU-AFC friends, they do so within a kaleidoscope of amnesia that has more impetus than the most destructive tsunami.
As we write, the CEO of the Gold Board is the daughter of Donald Ramotar. This detail should not be missed; she secured the appointment while her father was President. The amnesic booklet is always present when the PPP leaders take to the street corner, hold their press conferences and write their newspaper letters. Always forgotten was the fact that Donald Ramotar’ s son, while Ramotar was President, was the head of the e-governance cable project.
Now fast forward the tape to the Coalition Government and use your imagination. Do you know what will happen inside the concrete walls of the PPP headquarters on Robb Street ironically named Freedom House if Moses Nagamootoo’s son turns up as the CEO of the NIS or Forestry Commission; or President Granger’s daughter becomes CEO of GuySuco or the revenue authority? War drums will beat up and down Robb Street. But it is not the beating of the drums that is the essential point but what the sound will be saying.
The sound will be saying that incestuous politics is the culture of the Coalition Government. Here now is the essential point of this column. For sixteen months we have had a deluge of PPP’s newspaper letters and press conferences lamenting the lack of democracy in Guyana since the May 2015 general elections but not even an obscure footnote of a half-baked apology can be found tucked away in the pages of these voluminous outpourings.
Rohee and Gail Teixeira were Cabinet powerhouses for 23 years. Jagdeo coveted the presidency for a dozen years. Ramotar held the presidency for three years. Bringing up the rear were other powerhouses like Leslie Ramsammy, Robert Persaud, the Amerindian “teeth” Minister, the dancing “Satyra Gyaal” Education Minister, the “extra-judicial killing” Minister who went to the Indian sub-continent and others too many to mention. In all this time of semi-fascism, naked corruptibility, incestuous animalism, morbid corruptibility and demoralizing philistinism, Guyana became a virtual moral cesspool.
Are we living in the real world of Guyana when against this backdrop, Gail Teixeira wrote the Prime Minister to complain about a certain APNU+AFC official is displaying nasty Facebook comments about her? Maybe we should move on and forget about the infantile masquerades of a has-been politician like Teixeira but in every line we write, history is recorded.
It was this same Teixeira, along with Roger Luncheon, Robert Persaud, Hydar Ally and Donald Ramotar that during the presidency of Jagdeo set up a propaganda hit squad.
Its de facto leader was David DeGroot, who as editor of the PPP newspaper, got paid from the Office of the President’s pay role. When De Groot died, Kwame McCoy took over the unit in addition to his own unit that he operated. The objective of the outfit of Ms. Teixeira and company was to dirty the independent critics of the PPP regime including people like Christopher Ram, myself, Mark Benschop etc. The most scandalous things were said about us and our families. Do you think a tiny apology will ever come? Are we living in the real world?

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