A nationalist the APNU+AFC leadership refuses to befriend

Aug 29, 2017 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
I write to address two trending and topical issues to which I feel the need to offer my unbridled opinion. I have noticed that disparaging remarks have recently surfaced on Facebook and in the opinion columns of some dailies regarding my friendship with Freddie Kissoon. Editor, I do not possess the skills of prose, poetry or rhyme nor do I possess the innate techniques required to combine melody, rhythm and harmony to compose a syncopating ode of description befitting our friendship. Therefore, in response I wish to declare in simple tones that I am proud to be a friend of Freddie’s.
I have found Freddie to be sincere about his love for his country and his desire to see all citizens share its fruits. He has a genuine desire to see a Guyana where government governs in the best interest of the masses and not in favor of a few. He eschews racism and discrimination. He has a genuine hatred for corruption, nepotism, tribalism and the plunder of our resources to benefit a small circle of friends. In this regard, I can see why Freddie is repulsed by the modus operandi of the PPP. It is a Party which has for a very long time embodied these nation-blighting attributes.
I suspect that Freddie has come to accept the inevitabilities that come with advancing age and it has served to intensify his desire to witness in his life time a Guyana where social services are designed to benefit the masses in the most efficient ways, a Guyana where the best education, security, infrastructure and health care are not enjoyed only by the rich and a Guyana where human rights cannot be bought with money.
Freddie is an independent thinker who cannot be held ransomed because of his ideas, he speaks up not only for himself but for those made voiceless due to circumstance. These traits I consider positive and praise worthy. To Freddie, even though you have become the man many love to hate and a pariah in the eyes of those who seek to plunder this nation, I am proud to be your friend and if I attract similar odium for associating with you it’s a road I’m not unprepared to trod. I believe Freddie is a strong bridge between the masses and the ruling political class in whom the current government can have a formidable ally but sadly, the relationship with him is being badly mishandled.
With regard the recent tantrum we have seen from Ms. Bibi Shadick, she opposes the text of the Broadcasting Amendments of 2017 and in so doing she makes one fundamental point which I wish to address. She claims, inter alia, that her appointment to the GNBA was delayed by about two months to allow the current Board to complete the amendments in her absence. The recommendations for amendments were completed prior to the life of the current Board but due to the inquiry, it was agreed that all such matters be placed on hold to give the Post-Inquiry Board an opportunity to review it.
The members of the current Board are sufficiently independent people with the ability to make informed judgments, the law does not cater for minority reports save and except an accurate record in the Minutes of the deliberations, as such, a decision of the Board is just that, it is highly unethical for one to disclaim a decision of the Board to which he/she is a member. Further, Ms. Shadick should know that the GNBA is not responsible for making laws and it can only advise or recommend measures to the government, therefore it is not a plausible explanation for any delays in the receipt of her instrument of appointment.
Those recommendations (up to the point where they were inherited by the current board) were being drafted over a period of more than 6 months, the PPP had ample time to name its nominee to the Board, it did not, as such they failed to represent their constituencies and have now morphed into Chicken Licken who shouted throughout the farm that the sky is falling. I did not know that the Leader of the Opposition had recommended Ms. Bibi Shadick to sit on the current GNBA Board.
Had the President or Prime Minister sought my opinion I would have said in no uncertain terms that the President should have refused to appoint Ms. Shadick and ask that another name be submitted. The simple reason is that there is severe conflict of interest with respect to her candidacy, so much so that it violates the Broadcasting Act 2011. Ms. Shadick served as chairman of the regulatory agency (GNBA), mere weeks after serving in that capacity she was represented a client (Freedom Radio) as an administrator.
Mere moments after serving (or perhaps still serving) as a representative of the said client she has been appointed to sit as a Regulator. The lines of her relationship between the Regulator and the Regulated are sufficiently blurred to create doubts about her judgement. The Broadcasting Act deems such conflict as misconduct, in light of this fact it is my settled determination that the President should forthwith revoke the appointment of Ms. Shadick.
Leonard Craig

---

---