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Generally I tend to ignore Robin Singh’s fifth columnist efforts in service to the PPP, but…
DEAR EDITOR,
Generally I tend to ignore Robin Singh’s increasingly transparent fifth columnist efforts in service to the PPP. When it was that I exposed and thwarted his insidious attempt to bait and switch youth engagement in 2015 towards Freedom House’s campaign, I considered Mr. Singh a spent force, and still do, despite whatever usefulness he has convinced Bharrat Jagdeo that he has.
What I take offence to in his most recent submission is that he has now moved from creating a fake organisation in service to the PPP to trying to destroy what seems to be a genuine effort by young people, the Policy Desk, to organise themselves and make an independent contribution to the political space.
Mr. Singh writes:
“A simple examination of APNU+AFC roll call of Members of Parliament is all the evidence needed. These same forces are again funding and directing young people up that dead end street. Ruel Johnson and Sherod Duncan are once again leading the charge. Having watched the Alliance For Change self-destruct, they are members of a new front organization, the Policy Desk, which seeks to use subterfuge and trickery to attract votes for APNU+AFC. The same promises made in 2015 are being regurgitated, with the hope of bags for Ruel and Sherod and nothing for the youth.”
I’m not sure what is his reference to APNU+AFC “Members of Parliament” is but I can easily refute that I have any role in any existing political party in Guyana – indeed, I have never been a member of any.
More to the point, I had absolutely no role in the organization of the Policy Desk’s youth engagement, nor do I have any whatsoever part to play in what the entity does. I have made no secret of encouraging young people in general to engage in critical thinking and developing a culture of participatory citizenship. I’m not sure how that translates in Mr. Singh’s mind to my leading the charge of a specific initiative, but this is the sort of absurd and crude sophistry people have come to expect from him.
Far more dangerous is Mr. Singh’s attempt to link the policy to Alliance For Change executive member, Sherod Duncan. I have gone on record in pointing out the serious credibility and integrity issues that Duncan is burdened with, particularly in relation to his ’employment’ as General Manager of the Guyana Chronicle.
To this date, after having been employed ahead of far more qualified candidates and not having the basic qualifications himself, Mr. Duncan remains, to all public knowledge, under investigation for unauthorised spending as Chronicle GM. This means that the chief officer of a state-owned company has, while being paid, spent more time under investigation than he has actually performing his job. I maintain that this makes a mockery of any serious claim to public accountability, and the Board of GNNL owes the public a detailed update on the status of the investigation.
To seek to taint the effort of a group of young people with that sort of stain is indecent and unfair, but decency and fairness in public commentary has never been a major theme in the campaign strategy of Mr. Jagdeo, the man pulling Robin Singh’s strings. If this is Freedom House’s strategy to attract youth votes, I wish them well.
Ruel Johnson
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