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Jagan, Manickchand, Jagdeo: Facts for fighters

Mar 10, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

When I was very young, the Mirror, the newspaper of the PPP, carried a weekly column written by Cheddi Jagan with the title, “Facts for Fighters.” Someone needs to do a similar column in one of the two independent newspapers, Kaieteur News or Stabroek News, with the exact title, and provide facts to the current PPP leadership that they ought to be ashamed of, just as Cheddi wrote his facts to shame the leaders in the PNC government from the late sixties onwards.
I wouldn’t mind doing such a weekly column for the Chronicle, but I may end up like David Hinds and Lincoln Lewis. But I am made of different substance to both of these gentlemen who have been my friends for more than forty years. David said he is not interested in confronting Nagamootoo and the two bigwigs from APNU+AFC that took the decision to oust him from the Chronicle. Lincoln said to me at the wake of former PNC youth leader, Bevon Currie; “I have nothing to say to Moses.”
I, on the other hand, would definitely confront any minister, from David Granger right down, who would have made the decision to drop “Facts for Fighters” in the Chronicle. Unlike David and Lincoln, I would not shut my mouth and let the egregiousness go without a fight. Well there isn’t going to be a showdown, because I could do “Facts for Fighters” on my own page right here in Kaieteur News. I could do an episodic “Fights for Fighters” in the space of my own column.
Here is the first “Facts for Fighters” done with the specific intention of shaming the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabals that made a mess of governance from 2002 to 2015. When the APNU+AFC government began to investigate Pradoville 2, Jagdeo cited lands at the back of the Botanic Gardens that the PNC administration awarded the family of President Burnham.
The real story is that the family left the land unused for more than thirty years and a huge part of it is still idle and squatters have hijacked a section of it.
Now here are facts for fighters. The Jagdeoite state used hundreds of millions of dollars to landscape Pradoville 2, then, sold the plots far below the market value. But there is a dimension here to this story that is not as clear cut as it looks.
One of the Jagdeo ministers can claim that it is human nature to buy something cheaply if the seller doesn’t know the exact value. That minister can say I got a plot of public land cheaply, why blame me for taking advantage of that. Enter Priya Manickchand.
Manickchand got public land to build a house. But guess what? She turned around and sold what she built on it for a reported one million American dollars to a businessman, David Narine. Here is where President Jagdeo should have stepped in and said, “I thought you wanted a roof over your head, why did you sell the asset you got from the government as a concession?”
Now here are more facts for fighters. Clement Rohee was awarded a piece at Pradoville 2 when under the regulation, you cannot get another plot if you already had one, and Rohee had one on which he built a house at Eccles.
Jagdeo was not interested in sanctioning Manickchand because of the nature of his character. He could not have castigated Manickchand when, he, Jagdeo invited a man working in Barbados for a corporate salary in American terms, to have a plot in Pradoville 2.
Jagdeo left all the patriotic police officers, army officers, retired public servants and gave Dr. Compton Bourne a parcel in the area. Surely, with his salary, Bourne could have easily bought real estate at any high-priced location in Guyana.
Here are more facts for fighters. It is coming to four years since the APNU+AFC regime is in power and the two children of David Granger are nowhere to be seen or heard from. Both are holders of university degrees. But as soon as Ramotar became president, his children were slotted into some high-paying state jobs. And talking about children, one of the top public servants in Guyana, Jagdeoite confidante, Khurshid Sattaur, had three family members working at the GRA where he was the boss.
Are there any more facts for fighters that we can use to shame Jagdeo, Ramotar, Manickchand, Teixeira, Roger Luncheon, Irfaan Ali? The answer is a gargantuan yes. But the list is endless. I will end with the concession Jagdeo’s friend got, and when the Guyanese icon, Yesu Persaud said they were not backed by law, Jagdeo called him ignorant.

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