When the media descends to disgraceful levels, it vulgarises its mission

Aug 16, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Stabroek News editorial of August 9, 2021 noted that, “The firing of Dr. Vincent Adams as Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was the first sign that the PPP/C government would apply its own doctrine of necessity to decision-making. Dr. Adams was a consummate professional.”
This is one of the most asinine, indecent, immoral, barefaced and mentally twisted statement made about the professionalisation of politics and the politics of professionalisation in the history of this country. Dr. Adams during the reign of the APNU+AFC government sat in the leadership of the AFC. He was and is one of the most influential leaders in the AFC whose presence in the AFC’s hierarchy was and is more pervasive than many other seniors in the AFC.
It is idiotic to describe a politician occupying a place on the pyramid of a ruling party as a consummate professional. A better description would be a Burnhamite professional in the sense that under the paramountcy of the party in the presidency of Forbes Burnham, there was no distinction between politician and professional.
Dr. Adams was so trusted in the war room of the AFC that he was one of the negotiators in the confabulation between the PNC and AFC to renew the Cummingsburg Accord. After the successful conclusion of the talks, Joe Harmon from the PNC and Khemraj Ramjattan from the AFC issued a joint statement informing the nation that sections of the accord will have to remain secret.
Two of those secretive clauses were (1) the AFC will agree not to accede to the presidency in the event the serving president from the PNC is unable to continue (see my column of Wednesday, February 10, 2021, “The shocking secret part of the Cummingsburg Accord” and (2), the PNC and AFC agreed in principle to pursue a merger of the two respective parties with a name to be solicited from a cross section of the leadership of both parties.
Dr. Adam should have resigned after his party lost power in August 2020. His position as CEO of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was derived from his status as a party big wig. It was an ugly circumstance when he chose not to thus, giving the new government no choice. At the time when he was made the Director of EPA, he had no enduring service to Guyana but came back when he was in his early seventies. In securing the EPA position, he was keeping out a younger Guyanese.
I met Dr. Adams once. We had a plantain chips lime one evening at the Demerara Cricket Club. The other guest was AFC executive, Michael Carrington. Though I am bound by moral obligation to Dr. Adams not to reveal the contents of a private lime, it was clear to me that he saw a future for himself in politics. There was one particular remark he made that suggested that the AFC sees him as one of the leaders for the future.
In describing Dr. Adams as a consummate professional, the Stabroek News has done a cruel and bestial caricature of some fine, admirable professionals in Guyana. The General Manager of the NIS, Ms. Holly Greaves, is not in the leadership of any political party and has never been. Mr. Godfrey Statia of the GRA is not in the leadership of any political party and has never been.
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Dr. Paloma Mohamed, is not in the leadership of any political party and has never been. The Registrar of the University of Guyana, Dr. Nigel Greavesande, is not in the leadership of any political party and has never been.
The Director of Prisons is not in any political party and has never been. The Traffic Chief is not in the leadership of any political party and has never been. The Solicitor General is not in any political party and has never been. The Chief Education Officer is not in the leadership of any political party and has never been. Shall I continue?
My own honest, personal opinion of Dr. Adams is that as head of the EPA, he should have been fired when he levied a fine of a nonsensical sum of one million dollars on one of the richest families in the Caribbean for blocking the Pomeroon River with coconut shells. Then to add insult to injury, he agreed for the money to be paid over an extended period of time. For my anger at this see my column of Wednesday, July, 24, 2019, “Coconut shells and Movie Towne: This shithole country.” I know why Dr. Adams only went for a million. I know who wrote that Stabroek News editorial.

(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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