Former President defends his PPP colleagues

Jul 08, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I want to acknowledge what a great relief it was when the EU office admitted that its recent statement about its assistance for the sugar sector was in great error: that assistance was not G$ 348 billion as first asserted but just G$ 34.8 billion! There had been a decimal point error! Former Presidents Ramotar and Jagdeo had been correct in their expressions of hurting consternation about that first asserted figure. No doubt that error provided fertile ground for speculations about a further, over G$300 billion of allegations about massive corruption.
OK, to err is human. I recall myself at one time being uneasy about a number reaching me but under time pressure I let it go, only to be determined soon thereafter that there was an embarrassing decimal error. To err is human, but much damage was done over the more than 120 hours that this error stood, damage not only to us the PPP/C but to Guyana to our national reputation and to increasing the bitterness between our peoples. What is to be done to have this damage undone?
Our Minister of State, the Honourable Joe Harmon, had gone to town wondering where the PPP/C had diverted the additional over G$ 300 billion intended for sugar workers. He sounded like he had become the lawyer for GAWU and our sugar workers. Honourable man that he is I am expecting that at his next press conference he would acknowledge how mistaken he was, and undo the impression that there is another G$ 300 billion unaccounted for.
Some say that it is a particularly ill event that doesn’t bring some good, and this event shows how easily allegations of corruption could be mistaken. As former President Ramotar has been acknowledging, recognizing that we, PPP/C, are but humans he could not and would not assert that there was no corruption, but he would assert that the allegations of corruption were grossly exaggerated. As PU/NICIL and my colleagues, the former Finance Minister Ashni Singh and the former CEO of PU/NICIL were put into the news again, recently, let me say again that I see intense policy differences, the completion of the Mariott Hotel against Motions passed in Parliament, as the motivation for the allegations against them. It needs no saying – I stand with them.
We have had two years of the forensic audits and very little has come of them so far. In the early flush of excitement of the change in Government and the natural excitement of making discoveries it seems like many were carried away in what they said and what others understood them to say. Every two or three weeks the public has been told that someone is about to complete his advice and charges will be laid soon. How much is there really that merits charges. The antics associated with the charges of theft of law books against former Attorney General, Mr. Anil Nandlall should give everyone cause to pause and wonder. SOCU and our Police have found themselves being made to look foolish, explaining that they were pursuing a warrant to search for ‘Law Reports of the Commonwealth’ not ‘Commonwealth Law Reports’.
Even so, my school books would urge me to wonder why would such allegations of corruption find appeal. Firstly, we were not perfect as former President Ramotar acknowledges coupled with the human inclination to try a change (after 23 years) and, at times, to accept any excuse for the change. Secondly, some political adroitness of our opponents, our present Coalition Government (they have our best propaganda man). Perhaps we made our accomplishments appear too easy not wanting others to know about the difficulties and uncertainties we faced. Our Honourable Finance Minister told our GMSA a week or two ago that there is no investment money for constructing a hydropower station in Guyana (in addition to misrepresenting the recommendations of the latest Amaila report). However, we, PPP/C, had put together a good project for the greening of our people and country and can do it again.
Perhaps if we could have brought our people into the confidence of our difficulties, then perhaps they would have shared in the achievement of bringing a Mariott to Guyana and not engage in the ill-founded pursuit and persecution of my colleagues and friends, Ashni and Winston. Perhaps if our then young President Jagdeo in the bitterness of the violence flowing subsequent to our PPP/C win at the 1997 elections, could have not let drop his early, open, welcoming invite to all and sundry, “I need your help”; perhaps if our 2011 jingle about ‘all the roads and buildings we building’ did not end, “dem ah watch we” but “come and join we”; then maybe there would not have been that urge to deny, pull down and belittle us and our achievements and grab at any allegations of massive corruption, no matter how far-fetched. After two years and seeing how questionable are the allegations of wide spread corruption, let us bury that hatchet and get back to developing our people and country.
Samuel A. A. Hinds
Former Prime Minister and Former President

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