Politics of the punitive

Oct 11, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

We all could have seen it coming, so obvious was the PPP Government and its leadership. The inevitable stoppage of the money to IPADA-G could be detected from the manner in which the Hon. Vice President resorted to his old vindictive ways. He then compounded the charade by starting to dance around in the bushes to come up with the right combination of marbles. He did, and now IPADA-G is starved of government cash, through a reduction of over 90 percent.

The facts as uttered by the PPP Government are that there are problems with IPADA-G’s management and accounting of subventions given, even what arose to the level of the questionable, and which could not be tolerated any longer. The facts, according to the IPADA-G officers, are that all audit papers and reports have been given to the government, and they cannot fathom what the problem is. In the clashing circumstances, somebody is barking up the wrong tree; or one side went about its business the wrong way.

Editor, my position couldn’t be simpler, and it is two-fold. In the first part, if the PPP Government has uncovered fraud or any manner of impropriety, as alleged by the Vice President, then the book has to be thrown at those responsible at IPADA-G. Put them before the courts, and let the matter take its course from there. In the second instance, if there is nothing underhanded in the books and records, or with the disbursing of funds, then the books should be returned, the full flow of funds resumed, and close this out.

Now I wish to go into two other directions. I gather that the PPP brain trust is bent on gutting an entity devoted to the welfare of African Guyanese. I interpret this as part of its push to bend others to its will, and to neutralize Afro Guyanese pockets of presence, maybe even what is viewed as representative of potential resistance. At best, what is at work is heavy-handed, overkill, and crass; at worst, it is what is stained darkly with what causes PPP Government folks and their loyalists untold agitations. One word begins with ‘d’ and one of its synonyms starts with an ‘r.’ And if I were really focused on the combustible, then there is the ultimate expression, which begins with an ‘a’ and of which flourished all the way over there by the Cape of Good Hope. Part B of this first vision of the PPP Government is that it may have a fresh, new channel in mind for extending a helping hand to Black Guyanese. By my estimation, there is a newcomer doing auditing work, who is a good candidate to come up with an alternate structure to IPADA-G; or already has a welcoming roof in place.

The second direction I take in this IPADA-G funds strangulation is that it is as severe odds with President Ali’s farce about ‘One Guyana.’ I say it: there can never be anything approaching a remote version of ‘One Guyana’ when this IPADA-G development comes across as such a hard contradiction of whatever that presidential and political slogan truly means at the core. I can’t curse someone from one side of my mouth, and then croon love songs to her from the other side in the next breath. This is what the President and Vice President are doing in the sum of their undistilled practices. To do so once might gain a pass on the basis of accident or mistake. But to enact this repeatedly and blatantly, clearly viciously, brings its own devastations to the ‘One Guyana’ mantra, and exposes it as nothing but the worst and cheapest type of hypocrisy.

Lest it be forgotten, I repeat to register: if IPADA-G officials mismanaged, misrepresented, or misappropriated monies handed over, then march them off in pinstripes. If, on the other hand, this is another scurrilous manufactured crisis by the PPP Government, then it is just another vulgar, criminal day in the life of Guyana. It is what wars with the President’s and Vice President’s postures about one of anything, including truth; merely politics through the punitive.

Sincerely,

GHK Lall

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