Never a dull moment in Guyana

Jan 27, 2019 Features / Columnists, My Column

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It never fails to surprise me when people with the ability to check and double check a story would rush to conclusions. This happened a week ago. I saw a story about a conferral of senior counsel being revoked and I was surprised.
My investigations revealed that Vic Persaud of Ministry of the Presidency called Attorney-at-Law Timothy Jonas to ask him whether he would accept the conferral of silk should it be offered.
Jonas told me that he answered in the affirmative. Then came another call from Persaud to inform him that the conferral was not made. He then surmised that his decision to join a political party was the cause.
I called Persaud who confirmed that he did make the call, but he said that at the time there was only a recommendation. He said that when he learnt that the conferral was not made, he called Jonas to explain that there would be no such.
He then told me that something cannot be taken away if it was not offered, and that the conferral was not offered.
However, there were those who claimed that the conferral was revoked. And a press conference hosted by Jonas actually made such a statement. Persaud told me that it was a storm in a teacup. Arguments were many.
People claimed that silk was a judicial conferral; others said that the president had the final say. I do not know which. If the president does have the final say then there is no issue. If the recommendation by the Chancellor is final, then one must ask how is it that the president would step out of his ground. He is not known to be such a person.
I then asked myself why were there no conferrals during the tenure of President Bharrat Jagdeo? Did the Chancellor not find anyone suitable? Or was it that Jagdeo rejected every nomination? Suffice it to say that there was not a sound from anyone.
Another issue that grabbed attention involved three children who died as a result of pre-chemotherapy treatment. Apparently they were given some injection and they died. I would have expected that after the first death there would have been an intervention.
The call for an investigation came after the third death. I don’t know who is going to test the drug, but I anxiously await the findings. But the confusion does not end there. The family of the third child asked that the postmortem be delayed until they could procure the services of an independent pathologist.
However, there was a postmortem. The hospital claimed that another family claimed the body as their own. Is it that people cannot easily recognize their own child? The parents of the third child certainly did, and sparked something that would have been a comedy had it not been so serious.
The hospital had to call the undertaker, who then contacted the driver of the hearse, even as the relatives of the other child were heading to Bartica. I could imagine the consternation in that camp as they were all told that they had the wrong body.
Better late than never, I suppose. Imagine the confusion had the body landed at Bartica. People would have been crying over the wrong body, even as people would have been arguing over what was there before their eyes.
Then there were the threats. Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo wants the public servants to refuse to carry out Government decisions. I don’t know who would be in the employ of a government and refuse to execute programmes ordered by the government.
He did call on people in the local authority areas his party controlled to refuse to undertake programmes identified by the government. There was no no-confidence vote then. It was just a case of destabilization. Such is the nature of politics.
Things became even more strident. Jagdeo said that he would not honour any privatization deals concluded by the government. This took me back to 1992. Dr. Cheddi Jagan had said that when he acceded to office he would revisit the agreements entered into between the Hoyte administration and companies like Omai, Barama and Atlantic Tele-Network.
To his credit, he did revisit those contracts, but said nothing about his findings. It turned out that he discovered that the agreement with Omai was one of the better ones in the world. Suffice it to say that when Omai had that cyanide spill, the very People’s Progressive Party rushed Omai back into production, even as the environmentalists felt that the situation had not been remedied.
The agreement with Atlantic Tele-Network was iron clad. Later, even Jagdeo was afraid to touch that company. The Americans ensured that he could not. For him to talk about not honouring privatization deals this time around is nothing but hot air, and he knows this.
But he goes further. He talks about re-opening the loss-making sugar factories. He then makes bold to say that he would continue to pour money into them because his government is going to be charitable. It was noted somewhere that he was prepared to pour money into a black hole, money that could go to further develop the country.
At best, his statement is an appeal to the sugar workers. He wants their vote, so he is making a promise that everyone knows that he would not fulfill.
What I admire about him is his candor. He openly says that he is going to be the front man, regardless of who is in charge. He does not care who says that his president would be his puppet. He insists that once his party accedes to the government, Guyana would be governed by Jagdeo, something that many people resent.
They celebrated when he failed to get the courts to allow him a third term. He must know whether he is sending the right signal.

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