2019: Nasty or ugly, sick or depressing or all four?

Jan 16, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Some unpalatable things happened in 2019 and they force us to look back to the criticisms, this columnist, many editorials of this newspaper and the Stabroek News, the opposition parties and many sections of the society lambasted the PPP for, when that party was the political administrator of the country.
Let’s start with the Minister of Public Security. Sadly this fine lawyer has lost his way. Two egregious stumbles of Ramjattan filled the air with pyrotechnical hypocrisy that made the PPP look good. I cannot get it through the thick skull of some friends who will commit suicide if the PPP returns to power. But they have refused to tell their leaders in the PNC (APNU is a fictional construct) and the AFC, their horrible mistakes are driving voters into the bosom of the PPP. It is like Mrs. Clinton. She will never exorcize the stalking ghost of Trump. But her types in the Democratic Party created Trump’s victory.
GECOM announced the most incredible mistake and Ramjattan was the only politician in Guyana to deem GECOM’s mistake a positive innovation. GECOM required all citizens to visit a GECOM outlet with ID card to verify their names are on the list, a process that never existed since the first election in 1950. Ramjattan came out swinging in favour of the decision. The society’s reaction against the autocratic imposition was so swift that GECOM’s retraction was even swifter.
This wasn’t the only terrible indiscretion of Ramjattan in 2019. On the legal front, he shocked the entire country with his perspective on “conflict of interest.” “Frightening” is my adjective to describe the allegations made against the Crime Chief last year by lesser ranks of the force. The investigation was done by the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) whose staff are all juniors to the Crime Chief.
Conflict of interest kicks in for two reasons. Theoretically, an accused should not be investigated by his/her colleagues. Secondly, many of those juniors for all you know were beneficiaries of the Crime Chief. To avoid conflict of interest, you get external personnel to head the investigation. The term “conflict of interest” was not an invention of legal studies but it is in the legal profession, you find it being invoked all the time.
Ramjattan as a lawyer argued strenuously and in contemptuous fashion against critics who demanded that the OPR should not do the investigation because of conflict of interest. The OPR findings are still on the shelf. Imagine if a PPP minister had asserted that nothing was wrong with the OPR probing allegations against Commissioner Henry Greene. Ramjattan may have been the first to issue the denunciation.
Politically, it was a bad year for the ruling party, which the PPP capitalized on. So in effect one can say it was a good year for the PPP. SOCU took centre stage since the PPP lost power. SOCU was the impregnable force that was mandated to expose the PPP government’s saturation in corruption.
The opposite occurred in 2019. SOCU is riveted with allegations of criminal financial scandals. Its current head is suspended and is likely to face a court. SOCU’s twin, SARA, under former revolutionary Clive Thomas, had a dismal year too. SARA, like SOCU, has not shone its torchlight on 15 years of PPP corruptibility. This has allowed the PPP to ask the question using barefaced words; “was there ever corruption in the first place?” Of course there was!
If the hunters in SOCU in 2019 ended up being hunted themselves, so were their partners in SARA. The chief investigator charged with exposing corruption under Jagdeo, committed one of Guyana’s greatest ironies in 2019. He was shining his torchlight in the waters where oil fields were sold to people who had zero experience in the oil industry.
But the investigator ended up in the same situation. He had entered into some kind of transaction to buy similar oil fields. The poor head of SARA, in speaking about the investigator’s action, in maudlin tones told the press; “he didn’t even inform me.” How can you say after SOCU and SARA fell off the wall like Humpty Dumpty, that 2019 wasn’t a good year for the PPP?
Maybe 2019 was a celebratory year for the PPP when you think of what happened to one of the members of Granger’s new team that led the police force in 2019. That senior officer became the object of serious allegations of alleged criminal involvement by whistle blowers in the junior ranks of the force. 2019 was a sick year.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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