Only idiots do not know things come back to haunt you

Mar 26, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There are persons and organizations in this country I cannot respect. In fact, I am contemptuous of them. One such entity is the Private Sector Commission of recent times. By recent times, I mean during the heydays of the reign of Jagdeo and Ramotar.
Most of the business people who were still in operation when Cheddi Jagan came to power, had to know that oppressive governments’ net is viciously wide. No independent voice escapes the tentacles of repressive governments.
Business people welcomed the defeat of the PNC even though Hoyte opened up the economy. People wanted change. People felt the PNC ruled too long and it was time for a change despite the transformative credentials of Hoyte.
When Cheddi Jagan died and his wife gave up the presidency, Jagdeo showed his true colours. But the Private Sector Commission (PSC), the Guyana Manufacturers’ Association (GMA) and the Georgetown and Berbice Chambers of Commerce not only did they cozy up to Jagdeo, these people were behaving as if the business entities were political organizations; they embraced the crazy power output of Jagdeo. They did not learn the lessons of power under Forbes Burnham.
Jagdeo was so assured of the support of his boys in these business organizations that at a dinner of the GMA, he urged the attendees to boycott the Kaieteur News. Such attempts at muzzling the media, those very investors experienced under the PNC’s rule. All kinds of moneyed people supported the Catholic Standard in the days when the press was under duress and only the state-owned media existed. Once a ruler opens his/her mouth and attacks the press, you know it is a sign of things to come.
Jagdeo knew he had the support of these business entities so he did another egregious thing – he insulted a living icon who is regarded along with Peter d’Aguiar as the two best investors Guyana produced. The occasion was the launching of the Guyana Times. Yesu Persaud was openly abused by being called ignorant over a fact that President Jagdeo was ashamed to admit. Jagdeo had violated the Fiscal Amendment Act and had given his friend Bobby Ramroop concessions that were outside the law.
There were no condemnatory statement against the boycott call and the tirade against Persaud by the then President. These umbrella groups of Guyanese entrepreneurs were the happy colleagues of the ruling party. They did not learn anything from the haunting, hunting days of President Burnham. Under Jagdeo and Ramotar, the PSC representatives on state bodies behaved as if they were government representatives.
The PSC point man on the Ethnic Relations Commission was a shameless endorser of all the actions of Bishop Edghill. Mr. Ramesh Dookoo was the PSC’s person in the Council of the University and he never hid his loyalty to the PPP boys and girls on the board. These people did not care about the lessons of the past and how the past comes back to destroy you
For those who embraced the theory of PPP’s invincibility the unthinkable occurred in May 2015. The PPP lost state power. Guyana was to be administered by another political entity of which the PNC organization was the majority partner in office. So elements within the PNC began to give the PPP a dose of its own medicine and the PSC was besmirched by the medicine the PPP coughed up.
Under the 1996 amendment to the University of Guyana Act, the University Council consisted of stakeholders’ representatives but the stakeholders did not make their selections. They were made for them by Jagdeo and Ramotar.
Now the ruling party is doing the same thing. The PSC sent its name to be on the new UG Council. The government identified a person of the government’s choice. The PSC made a fuss about that. It said in the past it was allowed to make its choice. But Jagdeo and Ramotar allowed that because the PSC behaved like a PPP appendage and its nominee to the UG Council never had an independent mind or care about political interference. He/she went through the motion of endorsing what the PPP kings and queens did on the UG Council. Now history has come back to haunt the PSC.
The most decent and sensible thing for the PSC and all stakeholders to have insisted in those days was sending representatives that owed loyalty to Guyana and the principles of life. Interesting to note that this same PSC has never, I repeat, never uttered one word in support of two term limits after it was tested in court. The PSC may think that Jagdeo is coming back. It had better stop fantasizing.

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