My life: A reply to the PPP

Nov 05, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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The PPP issued a press release in which it stated inter alia; “The truth is under Jagdeo’s Administration, Paul Slowe’s upward mobility in the Force landed him the post of Assistant Commissioner of Police. However and most importantly under the PPP’s administration, there was no interference with the Service Commissions.” The PPP in its idiotic, narcissistic overdrive could not see how silly it was to juxtapose the two statements.
In the first part, the Jagdeo regime is given credit for the occupational elevation of Slowe. In the second part of the boast, the PPP tells us it never interfered with the functions of the Service Commissions, of which the Police Service Commission (PSC) is one such entity, and it is that commission that promotes police officers after recommendations from the hierarchy of the force.
Elementary logic would lead you to the conclusion that if the Jagdeo presidency didn’t interfere with the Police Service Commission, then Slowe’s promotion was the result of his work in the force and his promotion by the PSC.
What is the relevance then of stating it was under the Jagdeo administration that Slowe experienced promotion? It simply means that the Jagdeo regime had nothing to do with the upward movement of Slowe, and governments come and go, but public servants get promotion. But in its stupidity to claim plaudits for its fictional achievements when in power, the PPP leadership couldn’t see that in mentioning Slowe, it exposed its incompetence as a political party.
Let’s look at another PPP press release. This one is on my life. It included the following; “When the PPP took office in 1992, Freddie Kissoon was living in his mother-in-law’s house in Hadfield Street, Wortmanville. When the PPP demitted office, Freddie Kissoon was and is still living in a mansion located in a highly residential compound in the city of Georgetown. When the PPP assumed office, Freddie Kissoon commuted by minibus. When the PPP demitted office, Freddie Kissoon was driving an SUV.”
It is a group of sick people that lead the PPP. If you are a stranger to politics you would never know that it was under the PPP Government that my wife was harassed out of her job at GO- Invest, after serving fourteen years, and lost her pension because under Jagdeo the insurance company, CLICO, had collapsed. That stranger would never know that it was under the PPP’s hegemony that my contract at UG was terminated five months before its completion. At the same time, another UG lecturer who was a member of Ogle branch of the PPP was charged for sexual misconduct in his classroom, and was allowed to continue at UG.
Let’s analyze this press release on me. And I would ask readers to keep in mind the totality of asininities in the arguments of the PPP. It is pellucid for any reader to see the PPP has tied my upward mobility to its success as a government. This is not only deceptive, but downright moronic. My wife and I worked as any other public servant anywhere in the world, saved our money, and bought the necessities of life. What has that got to do with the Jagdeo presidency? My wife worked at GO-Invest. I worked at the University for twenty-six consecutive years. I applied for promotion at UG, got it based on peer assessment, and got salary increases like every other lecturer. What did that process, normal in every public sector institution, have to do with President Jagdeo and his ministers?
Hundreds of millions of people live their lives ambitiously and work hard for what they achieved. Those accomplishments are what life is about, what civilization is about. They have absolutely nothing to do with governments, which come and go like the morning sun in almost all countries in the world.
When the PPP came into power in 1992, there were financially comfortable professionals in science, teaching, medicine, law, engineering, technology, computer science, architecture, accountancy, agriculture etc. living in suburban areas. Was it the pre-1992 government that gave them what they had? Was it the direct hand of the government that kept these people alive financially during the 23 years of PPP’s reign? Or was it that these people worked for what they accumulated? Now that the PPP is out of office, will these people be pauperized?
Let us end on a hilarious note. If the PPP was directly responsible for my social elevation, then the Jagdeo cabal was a miserable failure. He ran Guyana fifteen years after I bought my car in 2000. Yet when the PPP demitted office, I was still driving the same car. The PPP forgot to buy a new car for me in those 15 years.

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