Questions journalists must ask the AFC leadership

Dec 09, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

We are in bad shape in this country in every sphere of life – politics, business, public service, academia, journalism, security sector, agriculture, human rights record etc. We just do not seek to excel, and maybe if we do attempt, we fall short. In the above areas, I function in the field of journalism. And we still have some way to go.

In many countries, the oceans of controversies that drown ruling politicians are kept on the front burner by journalists, but not so in Guyana. I cannot recall, at any press conference hosted by then-Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee, any journalist standing up and asking for an explanation as to why his non-immigrant and diplomatic visas were suspended for six months in 2005 by the US.

Since the APNU+AFC came into power, there are huge grey areas of political biology that journalists have either no knowledge of, or if they do, they do not pursue them. Take the local government elections last year, Raphael Trotman addressing a public meeting said that when the election results were declared, David Granger called him and said, “Raphael, this is Nassau,” referring to a conversation that he and Granger had a long time ago at the airport in Nassau, Bahamas.

What is meant by, “this is Nassau?” No one knows and no journalist has asked Trotman or Granger to elaborate. They may evade the enquiry, but it is a curious topic that the media should pursue. Let us stick with the local government poll. The AFC did not pull off a win in any NDC controlled before 2015 by the PPP; in other words, NDCs in which East Indians are in the majority.

The media so far has failed to ask the AFC leadership to account for this ignominious descent. For example, in Whim, the hometown of Moses Nagamootoo, his sister failed to secure more than a dozen votes. The AFC ought to have provided an explanation. But it is for our media operatives to press the AFC to explain this degrading defeat. In March this year, the Office of the President issued a press release with a riveting and revealing piece of information. In any other country that would have been treated as an explosive exposure and the media would have gone after it like flies on dead meat.

The press release stated inter alia; “With regard to Mr. Trotman’s appointment, Minister Harmon clarified that he was left unassigned after the AFC was allocated its full quota of ministries….” This is not Kaieteur News, or Freddie Kissoon, or some media house saying that after the AFC selected its Ministers in May 2015, Trotman was not given a ministerial portfolio. It is the Office of the President that has so informed the nation. During the 2015 election campaign, Mr. Trotman was part of the AFC’s leadership. He was always very high up in the AFC’s hierarchy. In January this year, he contested the leader’s position in the AFC against Khemraj Ramjattan and won.

The obvious question then, is why after the APNU+AFC won, Trotman was not made a minister. How do you explain this? Shouldn’t the media ask both Trotman and his colleagues in the AFC’s executive committee to explain this obvious anomaly? I would say that Trotman was always, and is still, seen as one of the two top players in the AFC; the other is co-founder with Trotman, Khemraj Ramjattan. Trotman’s party wins a national election and one of the two biggest names is not assigned a ministry after the initial selections.

What was the reason for this initial omission? There may be a valid and plausible explanation but the nation has to be told why. And since the AFC has not spoken on the issue, the media should ask it to so do. That simple question the media has so far failed to confront the AFC with. In which other country, would you have an aberration of this sort and the media just didn’t bother to follow up? Only in Guyana, man.

Next, there is the Trevor Williams fiasco. Five AFC bigwigs met at one of the AFC ministries and chose Trevor Williams to be AFC’s nomination to fill a vacant commissioner’s seat in GECOM. The AFC chose not to summon a Management Committee meeting which is the body that makes day to day decisions for the AFC’s executive committee which meets every three months. Two days after, when the President rejected the AFC’s nominee, the very big wigs summoned an emergency meeting of the Management Committee to denounce what the President did. Shouldn’t the media ask the AFC to explain this vulgar inconsistency?

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Questions journalists must ask the AFC leadership

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