Late night conversation next to Cuffy

Jan 07, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Former PPP Government Minister, Dr. Henry Jeffrey, wrote that the APNU+AFC Coalition is feasting its detractors. By detractors he meant the PPP opposition. What Jeffrey did not go on to say is that the Coalition is feeding the monster so it can come out of the water to eat it up. What is taking place in the heads of the people who make up the leadership of APNU and the AFC is virtually incomprehensible. Even the so-called impeccable ones in the WPA who are supposed to be imbued with Rodneyite culture have lost their mooring. Dr. Maurice Odle is surely not the WPA guy I knew forty years ago.
On Thursday night, I had dinner at the newly-opened Chinese restaurant, KAMBOAT on Albert Street with two highly placed persons in the Alliance for Change. I am not going to name one of them because he asked me not to. The other person was Marlon Williams.
While taking Marlon home on Vlissengen Road, someone was blowing on us. He pulled over and Marlon suggested that we move to Square of the Revolution, because it was disrespectful to stop in front of the Office of the President. I agreed, so we went to Cuffy.
I am not going to name this person; suffice it to say he holds a substantial position with the government and is a senior party person. I am not going to identify to which of the two Coalition partners he belongs. The conversation left a bitter taste in my mouth. So I ask the question again; what is taking place in the minds of these people that were successful in removing the PPP in a general election?
This gentleman was totally prepared to defend two Ministers who received funding to pursue higher education. I went at length to explain to him what the term scholarship means, and that as far as I know, the Government of Guyana only uses taxpayers’ money to fund citizens to study within a certain framework. For example, exemplary performance at CAPE earns one a Guyana Government scholarship.
Now the term Guyana Government scholarship can be misleading. When foreign governments and international organizations offer a scholarship to Guyana, it is arranged and processed by the Ministry of the Public Service. When you get one, you get a Government scholarship. It does not and should not mean that the Government of Guyana is funding your education at a university you chose. We did away with that in the seventies.
Top Queen’s College performers went to top foreign universities funded by the British Guiana Government. Some of these people went to Oxford and Cambridge. Many of them are still around. Rupert Roopnaraine is one.
I told the gentleman that I am not aware that the “scholarships” that the two Ministers got were advertised. I have been told that they were not openly advertised. That could be wrong. To avoid the penetration of the PPP propaganda, the Government’s public relations department should cite date and place of advertisement.
Then the conversation took another turn. Having conceded to me that he does not know if the offers were advertised and conceding that it is the Treasury that is paying for the two Ministers, he then posed two questions to me which enraged me.
He asked what was wrong with the government funding two public servants whose skills it needs. Obviously my reply was legalistic — ministers are not public servants. I told him that Donald Trump has to find five thousand employees, because when Obama goes those five thousand who are political appointees have to go.
He then shifted the goalpost, but unfortunately it fell into the trench. He intoned; “But Freddie, haven’t these people served?”
There and then, I had enough. It was getting late, plus Marlon Williams was anxious to get home. I parted company saying I didn’t know what he meant by “serve”, choosing to say that once we live in Guyana we serve. I mentioned Banks DIH and DDL and asked if they didn’t serve. But really I had enough. Then came my bombshell. And if he had answered I would have stayed on and Marlon Williams would have had to call a taxi.
I told him to sustain an intellectual polemic against Jagdeo’s sharing out of radio licences to his chosen friends. I bluntly told him I want to hear an argument of what was wrong or bad or depraved or immoral or unacceptable about that. He knew I had baited him. And there and then the conversation ended.
Many in APNU and the AFC may not be different from the Jagdeo circles.

1 thoughts on “Late night conversation next to Cuffy”

Prof. One Luv January 7, 2017 at 2:53 am

Freddie it is the nature of Third world politics – for our leaders to see the bad (governance) when in opposition but when in office continue to display the same bad/poor governance to the detriment of the entire nation.