Is Jagdeo’s memory failing?

Sep 17, 2017 Features / Columnists, My Column

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There are many occasions when people rely on their memory. I, like many, have been caught trusting my memory and getting things all wrong. What we do is place ourselves at a place and time when something happens. Years later we recall being somewhere but somehow, we remember the wrong event.
More often than not, we recall the wrong place and time when we try to remember the event. One case had to do with cricket. There was an argument about the last West Indian batsman to score a century in both innings of a Test match. Rohan Kanhai, to my mind, was the last and I was willing to bet until someone reminded me of Lawrence Rowe.
There was also Brian Lara in 2001 against Sri Lanka. Since then there has been Shai Hope. Indeed the memory plays tricks. That was my conclusion when Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo made some pronouncements about developments in Guyana. One had to do with the investment of money from the National Insurance Scheme into the Berbice River crossing.
The National Insurance Scheme was chaired by Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon, the right hand man to the President going as far back as Dr Cheddi Jagan. This scheme was a milch cow for the government. On every occasion when the government wanted money for a major project it turned to the NIS.
There was nothing wrong with this because the scheme needed to invest its huge holdings to keep paying its pensioners and other beneficiaries. But there were reports tht the scheme was only investing with those close to the then government. What made the loans from the NIS more lucrative were the low interest rates.
So the scheme put millions of dollars in the Berbice River crossing. But it was like a grant because there were no returns. However, Jagdeo told press conference on Wednesday that the NIS got money by way od the rate of return while his best friend Dr Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop got no money.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I ended up trying to get from the current chairman and from the General Managers past and present, how much money has the NIS been receiving. To a man or woman, they looked with a smile that said, “We don’t want to talk about that because you know the answer as well as we do.
During that same press conference, the issue of the Demerara Harbour Bridge came up. I remember when Burnham caused the floating structure to be built way back in 1978. Up until then, the West Demerara was a world removed from the city and the eastern part of the country. There was a ferry that plied the river and it stopped working in the evening.
As fate would have it, that bridge had its critics, some making bold to abuse Burnham by asking him to name the bridge, Viola Passage. That bridge became a lifeline to the extent that when its natural life should have been over the government of Bharrat Jagdeo did all in its power to keep that bridge.
Now that the bridge had outgrown its useful there is some controversy. It was the Jagdeo Government that conducted a feasibility study that concluded that the best location for the new bridge would be at Versailles and Houston.
The coalition government conducted another feasibility that came to the same conclusion. Yet here it was that Jagdeo told the press that the new government chose the new locations out of political considerations.
He pointed to a proposal done by entrepreneur Stanley Ming which recommended the identical crossing in 2015 and added that the coalition by coincidence arrived at the conclusion that Stanley Ming reached. Robeson Benn, Jagdeo’s Works Minister, actually wrote a memorandum to Cabinet asking for money for the same Versailles-Houston crossing as early as 2103.
So Jagdeo opted to lie again. But then again, it could have been his memory. He must have wiped his memory clean of everything he did so that whatever is happening today has to be new to him.
I did notice, too, that he failed to remember his direct political involvement in the operations of the Guyana Police Force. There was the Paul Slowe incident. Slowe had seized a firearm belonging to one of Jagdeo’s supporters.
His Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj directed Slowe to return the firearm, an order that Slowe refused to execute. To his credit, Slowe said that the order should come from his superiors in the Guyana Police Force.
Both Jagdeo and Gajraj decided to venttheir political might on Slowe. They began by attempting to transfer him out of the police force. They dropped that course of action when Slowe moved to the courts. But they ensured that Slowe was never promoted beyond his rank of Assistant Commissioner.
Today, the present administration is accused of meddling in the force. Jagdeo claimed that they are destroying the morale of the force. All that is happening is that officers with an astonishing accumulation of leave are being asked to take a portion of that leave. Jagdeo says that they are being moved out of the system for political reasons.
If the officers did complain to him it would have to be that they do not want to proceed on leave. But I doubt that the officers would complain. If they are corrupt then they may feel that their cushy position from which they would collect gratuities would now no longer be there for the graft.
There was some premature announcement about a Crime Chief. The officer, Ravindradat Budhram was indeed recommended but as Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan explained he was never moved to the office. There was no question of political consideration as Jagdeo sought to make out.
Ramjattan actually called Jagdeo an unparliamentary name. He said that Jagdeo was an inveterate or consumate liar. I would not go so far. I would say that the former president has a serious problem with his memory.
But Ramjattan gave a telling example. He said that Jagdeo, according to Hindu rites, walked around the maro seven times, a rite of passage at a wedding. Later, in a bout of forgetfulness, Jagdeo said that he never married.

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