HYPOCRISY

May 23, 2017 Editorial, Features / Columnists

In Guyana, there is an urgent need for honesty and integrity from our politicians on both sides of the aisle. That is needed to rebuild trust and confidence in the people and to end the divisiveness that pervades the country.

It is rather unfortunate that the leader of the opposition continues to distort the facts and spread lies, propaganda and hatred. A wise person once said that the truth shall set you free. This happened to be the case when former president Bharrat Jagdeo admitted that his government was guilty of interfering with the freedom of the press especially this publication.

However, he should also come clean on several other criminal and illegal acts that were committed under his presidency. They include the assassinations of the former Minister of Agriculture Sash Shaw and his siblings in 2002, Superintendent Leon Fraser in 2005, journalist Ron Waddell in 2006, the murder of more than 450 youths between 2002 and 2006 through extra-judicial killings and the trump-up treason charges against Mark Benschop and Bruce and Carol Munroe.

The opposition leader who traverses the country calling for an inquiry for almost every incident did not order any inquiry in the aforementioned assassinations and murders. In fact, under his presidency, crime increased four-fold. Guyana became the second most corrupt country in the Caribbean after Haiti. His vindictive actions against Kaieteur News and those who disagree with him was a blatant disregard for freedom of the press and human rights. The hypocrisy he displays today is scornful, distasteful and offensive.

His recent ghetto style cuss-down of the CEO of the State Asset Recovery Agency, Mr. Aubrey Retemyer, is a staunch reminder of many things. It is a distraction for his refusal to take a polygraph test which will expose his deceitfulness, lies and corrupt practices. His attack on Mr. Retemyer is false, malicious and baseless. While it reveals his infantile behavior, his distortion of the truth is comical. As president,he has not only misled the nation about his marital status, but he also awarded 90 percent of the contract to purchase drugs tohis good friend, gave away the airwaves to relatives, his party, and friends, and parceled out the country’s best ocean front land at Sparendaam to himself and his cronies.

This administration is not without faults either. It has falsely prided itself on honesty, transparency and accountability and has not learnt from the mistakes of its predecessor. It continues to borrow and spend recklessly as if there is no tomorrow. It has reneged on its promise to impose disciplinary measures relating to the controversial trip to China, the drug bond scandal, the death of the two boys who perished in a fire at the State-run center for children on Hadfield Street.

Many believe that David Granger’s reluctance to discipline the Attorney General for allegedly threatening Justice Holder, or the Minister of Health for sole sourcing $605 million to purchase drugs stems from the positions they hold in the PNC. The truth may be something else but this is the perception.

The government also has two sets of standards; one for the rich and powerful and the other for the poor and the powerless. It supported the dismissal of Lear Goring from the Guyana Water Inc. for failing to disclose that he was a convicted felon in the United States, but turned a blind eye to an Ambassador who also failed to disclose to the government that he was convicted and fined by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

This type of hypocrisy must be discarded if Guyana is to be developed.