Sam Hinds has been very nice to me but….

Oct 29, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Sam Hinds has been the longest serving Prime Minister in the Caribbean, beating out Eric Williams of Trinidad, but of course, Williams was the holder of real power. Sam Hinds was not, since Guyana has an executive presidency. During the course of his 23-year reign, I approached Mr. Hinds twice for two concessions which were of crucial importance to the two recipients.
When Mr. Hinds was in charge of the bauxite industry under President Burnham, he signed the dismissal notices of a number of workers. We all know he was ordered to do so. Long after that episode, Mr. Hinds became Prime Minister. I went to him for a house lot for a former bauxite worker whose dismissal order, Sam had signed. I explained the exigent need of the gentleman and I spoke of the bauxite background.
I remembered his words well. They took the form of an exclamation. He said, “Yes, yes, of course!” The person was given a note and within days he got the house lot. The second occasion (I wrote about these two stories before) was my request for a gun licence, which the Commissioner Laurie Lewis kept refusing for a small businessman who needed protection. Lewis retired and the opportunity came when Sam was acting President. I would never have gone to President Jagdeo. Sam agreed.
Samuel Hinds I regard as one, if not, the best of the hierarchical holders of power under the 23-year reign of the PPP. I would say he was far less deceptive in dealing with you than Cheddi Jagan (this country doesn’t really know how flawed Cheddi Jagan was). But my problem with Hinds was that he knew that in the realpolitik of PPP games, he was not invited to be in the war room, and that went way back to Jagan as President in 1992.
The PPP leaders loved Sam, but they never allowed Sam to have the type of power they had. I believe a historian and a political analyst are courting credibility problems if they argue to the contrary. The evidence just isn’t there to support the theory that the Prime Minister had real power. Ironically, the exact thing has happened with Moses Nagamootoo. Only goes to show how unchanging this Dostoyevskian society is.
I was moved to write this column on Sam after reading his latest letter in the newspaper; it was about GPL. The temptation is irresistible to ask Sam and every decisive decision-maker in the PPP Government from 1992 to 2015; what were the achievements of the PPP Governments and its presidents in those 23 years? Mr. Hinds writes frequently, and apart from David Hinds, no one has taken him to task. The number of questions would run into the millions.
What became of UG under those 23 years? It literally fell into dormancy. What happened to the judicial system? Where are the positive changes in our judicial system that the Coalition has inherited? Surely, Mr. Hinds cannot watch any citizen of this country and deny that the capital of Guyana was dilapidated as if Guyana went through a civil war. Important streets where foreigners had to walk were overrun with garbage and miasma. Georgetown under the PPP was an international embarrassment.
What scientific and technological progress did the regime of Sam Hinds and his presidents bring to this country? We introduced speed guns after the British High Commission donated six machines to the police force. After 23 years of Sam Hinds as Prime Minister, we still do not do DNA testing. Come on Sam, 23 years is a long period for any ruling party.
I saw people die for want of urgent emergency treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital. In several columns, (I am positive that there were more than a dozen) I lamented horrible delays in treating people at the Accident and Emergency Unit and death resulted.
I hope Sam Hinds does not misinterpret the arguments in this article. They are not directed at him personally. He wasn’t the Minister of Health. My essential point is that he was part of a government, no matter how clean he was, that did not perform.
Maybe I should end with the media. Mr. Hinds gets published often in the Kaieteur News and Stabroek News. I am confronting Sam Hinds now, by telling him I believe the intention of Mr. Jagdeo, and elements in the PPP hierarchy, was to weaken and paralyze those two newspapers. Today they are still alive and they carry the views of Mr. Hinds, which no doubt carry weight among PPP constituencies. I still like you Sam, but I love my country more. There cannot even be a comparison.

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