This man wants to protect those that SARA has on its radar

Feb 28, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I refer to two letters written by accountant Nigel Hinds, in which he criticized the SARA bill and attacked Professor Clive Thomas and the WPA. The letters were published in Kaieteur News under the following captions: “Nigel Hinds take issue with Dr. Clive Thomas on SARU” (Feb 16th 2017) and “Clive Thomas and the WPA have abandoned the Guyanese working class” (Feb 18th 20017).
Dr. David Hind, an Executive member of the WPA responded to Nigel Hinds’ missives in a letter captioned, “My critique of Nigel Hinds ‘criticism of Clive Thomas” (KN. Sunday Feb 19th 2019). I fully respect David Hinds’ opinion on matters which he has expressed his views on, although I do not necessarily agree with everything he says. One of the things I am in disagreement with is when he stated in his letter “Nigel Hinds does not set out to give the PPP a pass, but his twisting of the discourse away from its central objective of confronting the PPP’ s corruption will end up achieving that objective”.
I am contending here that David, in the remarks I have just alluded to, has attempted at reseting the discourse and in doing so unintentionally, created space for Nigel Hinds; giving him cover. I am not prepared to do the same. In my opinion opportunism is opportunism, plain and straight. Only time will determine to what extent, people like Nigel Hinds can withstand scrutiny.
Nigel Hinds is dishonest and was politically abusive in his letters, and deserves to be exposed for what he is – a member of the business/political alliance against SARU and the government. Readers will see that the posture assumed by him in his letters – the attacks on WPA and SARU/SARA and the scurrilous remarks directed to Professor Clive Thomas are being spouted by individuals whom, I believe, are inextricably linked – professionally and or personally–to persons who are under suspicion of wrong doing.
I am strongly of the view that what motivates them is their fear of exposure and therefore, for them their survival as law abiding citizens is to stop the Bill at all cost. That is why they are ranting and raving in the way they are.
I will not spend much time on addressing Nigel Hinds’ challenge on Clive Thomas findings on the criminal state and the underground economy, since this information was in the public domain for many years. During that period, Nigel Hinds was conspicuous by his silence on the Professor’s expressed views. He never wrote anything on them in those years.
The question is why now? Readers can form their own conclusion. His rejection of SARU’s estimate of the amount of gold that is smuggled out of the country annually and what is lost to the state, given the high level of corruption is another matter. Hinds acts as if this is the first occasion that SARU has made its projections known. No it is not. This was first done months ago and it was repeated on several occasions. Again, the records will show that Hinds was silent on these pronouncements. So I ask the question again why only now? His so called sincerity and motive on these important national issues are called into question.
Politically, Nigel Hinds has chosen to repeat the PPP’s propaganda on all issues be it Guysuco, the SARA Bill, PradoVille 2, audits, the economy, alleged capital flight from the economy etc. etc. While I disagree with him I recognize that he is entitled to his political choices. However, it is clear to me that his attempt to sow the seeds of division between the Ministry of Finance and SARU is nothing short of wickedness, which must be exposed.
He writes, “It is unfortunate that the emergence of SARU has adversely affected the efforts by our Honorable Minister of Finance, Mr. Winston Jordan, who is trying mightily to set our economic ship on course for improved economic growth”. His view that SARU is undermining the efforts of the Minister and the economy is hogwash to say the least.
He also cited SARU as being responsible for commercial banks being unable to supply clients demand for foreign currency. He writes that the general thrust of the post- May 2015 government is to spend “an extraordinary amount of time and money to set up a so-called ‘apparatus of anti-corruption’ unit led by the State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU). Hopefully, common sense will prevail and the bill never becomes an act”. Like the PPP and the Private Sector Commission (PSC) Nigel Hinds wants to see the death of the SARA bill. He claimed that SARA is a “monster” created by the APNU+AFC government to deal with its political opponents and cited the case against former President Bharrat Jagdeo and Prado Ville 2.
What I find interesting is that while Hinds rails against, the coalition government spending extraordinary amounts of time of money to set up apparatus of anti-corruption units, Nigel Hinds seems not to have any problems of accepting commissions, valued millions of dollars, to carry out audits into the operations of a number of agencies which resulted in the identification of numerous acts of wrongdoing by officials of those agencies. I will have more to say about this double standard of Hinds
Tacuma Ogunseye

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