Is there a move to sabotage government and opposition talks?

Jul 26, 2018 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Pradoville is back in the news and, the contentious nature of the issue aside, what I found interesting is the timing of the latest update from a unit that falls under the Ministry of the Presidency, which houses the President and the Prime Minister.
I say interesting because of the visible pattern in the last 12 months.
President Granger and Opposition Leader Jagdeo met on July 19th, 2018 and on July 22nd, 2018 we had the Pradoville issue resurfacing in the Kaieteur News under the caption ‘SOCU completes Pradoville 2 file, charges ready to be laid’.
Backtrack to January 3rd, 2018 when the two men met. Again two days later, on January 5th, 2018, you had SOCU and Pradoville back in the news, this time an article by INEWS under the caption ‘Sittlington to return as Mentor/Advisor to SOCU’, which talked about a foreigner continuing his work to ensure that there are convictions in the cases being addressed by SOCU.
Even more interesting was that the news of Sittlington’s return not only came two days after the Granger-Jagdeo meeting, but it came eight months after Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan, asked for him to return to SOCU. Was it planned timing?
A third case is seen after the Granger-Jagdeo meeting on October 19th, 2018. After that meeting on November 28th, 2017, there was the Kaieteur News article under the caption ‘Pradoville Two probe…Assessor moves in to value properties’.
Again we saw this pattern with the June 12th, 2017 meeting and the article that same month by the Kaieteur News under the caption ‘Suspected Pradoville ‘schemers’ closer to climbing court step’.
Editor, I have spent some time to detail these four examples to demonstrate that what we are seeing is a pattern. That said, the question that must be asked given the major focus of the July 19th, 2018 meeting between Granger and Jagdeo (the likelihood of government and opposition talks) is: Is there a move to sabotage government and opposition talks?
Secondly, is it the President’s office behind this move? Or is it the Prime Minister’s office?
In my view, it seems more likely that it may be the Prime Minister’s office. You only have to look at the big picture to see why.
If the Opposition, the PPP, and APNU engage, the AFC becomes more irrelevant. Their relevance is diminished because they are not among the political players dealing with moving political dialogue forward; the AFC has no seat at the table. If the PPP and APNU engage and reach agreement on issues, what use is the AFC serving? They have no constituency. Isn’t this reason enough to want to sabotage the government and opposition talks, to make sure that the AFC remains somewhat relevant?
Editor, with all that said, I want to say that the question – is there a move to sabotage government and opposition talks? – is an important one, particularly given the gravity of having government and opposition engagement.
Regards
Attiya Baksh

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