Former President, Donald Ramotar, responds to Freddie Kissoon again

Jun 23, 2021 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

I am once more forced to respond to the Freddie Kissoon column on issues he raised involving me in June 6 and 17 issues of Kaieteur News.
On June 6, 2021, Mr. Kissoon in an article headline “Perhaps, I’m the only Guyanese entitled to be hate filled.” In that piece, he raised three issues, which involved me.
I. That he was dismissed from the University of Guyana.
II. That his wife was pressured out of her job at GO-INVEST.
III. That my son had struck down his nephew with his car.

On June 16, 2021, the media published my response to the three issues raised by Mr. Kissoon. I showed on those issues no victimisation nor was persecution ever carried out against Mr. Kissoon.
On June 17, 2021, Mr. Kissoon responded to me in a manner that he knows best, slander and mudslinging. That has forced me to once again clarify the issues.
1) I insist that Mr. Kissoon had reached retirement age and his contract was not renewed at UG. To give you a full picture of what took place, I hereby quote from a statement made by four UG Council members on the issue. That statement formed the basis for stories in the media (Stabroek News and Kaieteur News) on February 1, 2012.
Here is what the statement said in part “…the Council recognised that Mr. Kissoon, a retiree and a lecturer, failed to meet the University policy with regards to retention of academic staff:
1. Have a healthy academic record to wit research and publications reviewed by academic peers are a requirement.
2. Have to face a competitive process with other applicants.
“The Council was unimpressed and not a single member of the 14 Council members present at that meeting, including the UGSS and fellow colleagues of the academic staff, not a single member supported his retention…”
Clearly, therefore, to blame the Government at that time for his removal, and to claim persecution is absolutely false. The Executive was not involved in Kissoon’s UG affairs.
His second charge was that his wife was pressured out of her job at GO-INVEST. I insist that that was not the case. Indeed, an attempt was made by the Chairman of the GO-INVEST board, Mr. Burrows, to get her to withdraw her resignation. That failed. Mr. Burrows was told by Mrs. Kissoon that she found a higher paying job.
I noticed that Mr. Kissoon said his wife “…lives a quiet life and does not want to be in the public’s eye…” well I am sorry for having to refer to her, but it was Mr. Kissoon who initiated this, thus forcing my response.
In relation to his claim that my son had hit down his nephew, Mr. Mark Benschop, BS, MA, MS, chose to respond. I would note that he produced no evidence that my son was wrong. I repeat that the car driven by my son did not hit Mr. Kissoon’s nephew. If he did, it would have suggested that Mr. Kissoon’s nephew was hit by the front of the car. He was not.
In fact, he, along with another man, was lifting a transformer out of a GPL truck and he stumbled on the side of the car. Mr. Benschop asked me to say if my “son was ever charged by the police and the victim ever received justice…”
The question is, what should he have been charged for? He was in no way responsible for any injury to Mr. Kissoon’s nephew. Therefore, no compensation had to be paid. The real victim in all of this is Mr. Alexei Ramotar who has been slandered. Mr. Benschop taking a page from Mr. Kissoon’s book slandered my son in relation to the cyber optic cable.
Let me try to put the record straight, Alexei Ramotar is a computer engineer; he was hired as the Project Manager of the E-Government project. He fulfilled that task on time and on budget. Since 2015, the E-Government project has been serving this country extremely well. The APNU+AFC government of 2015-2020, which Benschop supported even, built a huge unit around this project completed by the team headed by Alexei Ramotar. That project stands out as testimony of the quality of work of the unit he headed.
In relation to the cable from Brazil, it should be noted that the project was completely new for Guyana. It was to bring the cable at a distance of more than six hundred kilometers through rugged terrain and dense jungle.
The contractors chosen to work on the project were all selected by open tender. Moreover, they were supervised by one of Guyana’s outstanding and experienced civil engineers, the late Walter Willis. Mr. Willis had successfully completed many projects in Guyana.
However, due to lack of experience, it appears that the contractors underestimated the nature of the work. Only $5M dollars were allocated.
Moreover, none of the contractors had the equipment needed, since no such undertaking was ever attempted here before.
That project was given to the unit, which Alexei Ramotar headed because of the outstanding job that he did in bringing in the E-Government project on time and on budget.
The regular attacks on Mr. Alexei Ramotar are no doubt due to the fact that his father is a political person, a former President, so it is clear that the blows are really directed to me. I would say it is certainly unfair to Alexei. It is even cowardly to attack a person’s children to get at him/her. That happened to all three of my children.
Finally, let me re-state that Mr. Kissoon’s departure from UG and his wife’s resignation from GO-INVEST had nothing to do with discrimination or victimisation. I would never have condoned that!
Moreover, my son was not responsible for any injury that Mr. Kissoon’s nephew sustained. Indeed, he is a victim because his name is Ramotar.
Lastly, Alexei Ramotar did an outstanding job for what he was employed to do, that is, to build the infrastructure for E-Governance. It is there for all to see.