Jagdeo must debate his record

Dec 21, 2018 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Once again as Mr. Jagdeo proceeds to engage Parliament to debate the no confidence motion against the APNU+AFC government, he should take up the challenge to debate his record.
During the 2015 General and Regional Elections campaign, I called on then private citizen Bharrat Jagdeo, who was calling on then Leader of the Opposition David Granger to debate him, to debate me. I made this call because Mr. Jagdeo likes to think that he can debate others’ performance but doesn’t like his performance as Minister of Finance, President or Leader of the Opposition to be debated.
Observe how flustered and angry he gets when the media ask questions about his record.
Leader of the Opposition, Jagdeo, has no moral authority, is no position to claim or debate a no confidence motion in any government other than his. As President, his record is that of an abysmal failure and embarrassment to Guyana and Guyanese.
Before he can debate the three-year-old APNU+AFC government, he must first debate his twelve-year record as president (1999-2011), a record characterised by incompetence, evidence of greed, crime, narco-militarisation, marginalisation, racial discrimination, ethnic tension, strife, shame and disgrace on the presidency, intolerance of dissent, disrespect for our seniors, death squads, abuse of a woman whom he presented as a legal wife, which was later denied by her.
Let there be a debate of the bloodiest period of our independence, which was during his leadership. This much include the unsolved murders of Crum-Ewing, Ronald Waddell, his Minister of Agriculture Satyadeow Sawh, and the hundreds of others; the violation of laws and citizens’ rights; budgetary discrimination; numerous scams; association with nefarious characters; massacres; torture of children; hundreds of deaths that include citizens and members of the business community; the infamous Shaheed Roger Khan; the white elephant Skeldon Factory; the Amailia Falls scam; textbook, law book and milk powder scams; the floating wharves; attack on press freedom; Pradoville I and II; a failing healthcare system that he felt safer travelling to Florida to treat his stomach pain at taxpayers’ expense.
Mr. Jagdeo, let us have a debate on your record before debating the Coalition’s record. The jury is still out on yours. Furthermore, the list is so long that it will require more than one sitting of Parliament to debate. He should debate the employment record during his time.
Guyanese need him to answer why youth unemployment was the highest under his presidency. He talks often about sugar workers being retrenched by the APNU+AFC but he does not talk about his government retrenching them too or about the thousands of workers retrenched in the public service and bauxite. Let there be a debate on this record.
Let there be a debate of him as a role model and young leader, and the example he set. In 1999, Mr. Jagdeo ascended to the presidency through the anointment of Mrs. Janet Jagan who stepped down from the position.
During his era, Guyana and Guyanese suffered immensely. He governed with a thick ugly dark cloud of fear always hanging over. He wants to keep our mood dark by continuing his fear tactics as Leader of the Opposition.
Let there be a debate on his statesmanship or lack thereof. There should be a debate on his dictatorial tendencies and what late president and leader of the opposition Desmond Hoyte called executive lawlessness.
Let Mr. Jagdeo debate giving away our wealth to foreigners like Bai Shan Lin and others. During his presidency, the ‘get rich’ syndrome was pursued by any means necessary and Transparency International ranked Guyana as the most corrupt English-speaking country on this side of the equator.
Let Parliament first debate of Mr. Jagdeo’s record, temperament and lust for power; the obsession with power that saw backdoor dealings to have a third term. Thanks to the Caribbean Court of Justice, this will not happen. In 2011, he told Guyanese that he was finished with political office but came back in 2015 and knocked former president Donald Ramotar clean out.
The Leader of the Opposition has asked Members of Parliament on the Government side to vote according to their conscience. I’m asking Members on the Opposition side to vote with their conscience. A clear conscience knows that the APNU+AFC was elected by the people for a five-year term and willy-nilly excuses to prematurely end the term are unacceptable.
My experience as a former Member of Parliament knows every government can be answerable through the various parliamentary committees. Ministers of government, department heads, and any whom the committee thinks can aid the information it needs can be required to provide it. The Opposition knows this too and many of the crucial committees are headed by their Members.
The PPP/C is abusing the no confidence motion. This is another attempt to want to remove the Coalition through the backdoor. First, it was non-stop chanting to delegitimize the government with wild accusations that the 2015 elections were rigged and saying former GECOM Chairman Dr. Steve Surujbally must go.
The list goes on and on and on. The PPP/C feels they alone have the right to govern and no one else. When things do not go in their favour, they will use every pretext to cry foul and destabilise.
Though Mr. Jagdeo is always running away from debating his record, the fact that the PPP/C lost in 2011 and 2015, shows that Guyanese have placed no confidence in him.

Ms. Vanessa Kissoon
Former Member of Parliament
Region 10 Representative

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