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Dr. Leslie Ramsammy should look in the mirror

Jan 26, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

Former Minister of Health in the last PPP government Dr. Leslie Ramsammy has always strikes me as the doctor who came in from the cold and who ought to pay homage to the verse in Luke 4:23 ‘Physician, heal thyself.’
In a letter to Kaieteur News, Dr. Ramsammy blasts the present Coalition government for excessive and questionable spending of state funds on projects like the Durban Park stadium and the renovation of the Cheddi Jagan airport, among others. He is quite correct. However; the former Health Minister did not put his own house in order during the reign of the PPP.
• Let’s start with the Marriot Hotel. Not only did the PPP hide the contract from the public, but also the Jagdeo regime did not disclose the cost for the construction of the hotel even though public funds were used.
• This is true for the estimated US$208 million spent on the white elephant Skeldon sugar factory which is yet to produce a pound of sugar and is now closed.
• The US$ 20 million fiber optic cable project is another case in point. Former President Donald Ramoutar’s son who was head of the project was supposed to connect Brazil to Guyana. It did not happen! However, the former PPP Minister of Health seems unconcerned about the hundreds of millions wasted by the PPP. If these were not a waste of the taxpayers’ money, then we do not know what is!
Furthermore, the former Minister of Health remained silent when the PPP government awarded billions of dollars in medical contracts to one of Jagdeo’s closest friends. Instead of attacking the coalition government, the former Health Minister should explain to the public what procedures were followed by the PPP government to grant Bai Shan Lin logging rights to more than one million acres of Guyana’s forests. Why an inexperienced contractor awarded a contract by the PPP government to build the Amailia Falls road? The former Health Minister should tell the people what happened to the monies paid to Surendra Contracting to build the Specialty hospital. These are some of the hundreds of millions of dollars that are not accounted for by the Jagdeo/Ramotar government.
It must be noted that it was hypocritical for ex-ministers of the PPP government, including Dr. Ramsammy, to tell the nation that the public hospitals are safe while they and other senior members of the administration sought medical treatment oversees. They knew fully well that the hospitals in Guyana were not adequately equipped to treat the sick, yet they were encouraging the people to go to the hospitals. It is true that almost every minister in this and the previous PPP government have incurred huge overseas medical bills on the taxpayers. It seems that decency, honesty and integrity were alien words to some members of the PPP government and also in the Granger APNU + AFC coalition.
The fact that many in Guyana are struggling to survive and are at the mercy of the selfish, arrogant, vindictive and corrupt PPP and PANU/PNC/AFC governments is very troubling, especially with oil revenue on the horizon. Which of the two parties formed the government after the election on March 2, 2020; the people are convinced that they will mishandle the oil revenue. God help the people, especially the poor and the powerless in Guyana. At all cost, we must guard against corruption and lawlessness of public officials and the reckless spending of the taxpayers’ money.
Leyland Roopnarine
New York

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