The PPP: crime wave, criminal enterprise or national criminal institution

Jul 23, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – The question is simple, and it concerns the PPP as a group and the sitting national government.  It is one that all Guyanese, regardless of their political persuasion or religious beliefs, must face as matters of sheer patriotic duty, a duty to their conscience, and the self-respect owed to themselves.  Now for the question: is the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) a crime wave, or a criminal enterprise, or national criminal institution?  There is appreciation that the choices involve three evils.  It may be convenient to the blindfolded, muzzled, and stone-eared to negotiate with themselves for the lesser of the three, but sooner than later, reality must be faced.  The reality is right now.

A crime is about some form of wrongdoing: some passable and pardonable, others serious and with impacts to match. A crime wave is a series of crimes in quick succession.  Considering perceptions, reports, and anecdotes in the local environment, it cannot be accurately said that the PPP, as currently constituted, is a crime wave.  A wave has highs and lows; the crests are followed by valleys, no matter the series of waves, the duration of them.  Then that crime wave dies down, goes away.  Conclusion: a crime wave has an ending.  No Guyanese with a sense of what stands as lawful practices, governance integrity, and leadership principles, could honesty assert that the crimes of the PPP-as a party, as individual contributors, as a leadership custom-have eased off and stopped.  The litany of white-collar crimes committed, the blood-and-bones crimes perpetrated or covered up, has not peaked and then fallen off, in the manner that even mountainous waves do.  It is ongoing, intensifying in strength, expanding in the broadness of its reach.  Frightening, it is.

A criminal enterprise draws closer to what today’s PPP is at the core of its existence, the power of its practices.  A criminal enterprise is still competing with other underworld entities that are about grabbing every big dollar development that stirs interest.  As a practical matter, a criminal enterprise, like a ghetto gang, is one of several.  Where is the PPP’s crime criminal competition?  Who stands as next in line, is anywhere close? Now for a primer on how this takes shape, what makes the criminals in the PPP drool, wet themselves in anticipation.  Budgets are a reliable source of criminal prospects unfolding. There are lots of premeditation and preplanning on what arrangements must be made to capitalize on the poor man’s tax dollar.  Contracts have cushions made of extra hundreds of millions to facilitate additional thievery.  Crony capitalism is about buttering the bread of political benefactors.  More crudely, backscratching begets backscratching.   To put this in perspective, the PNC was terrible and deplorable in its time.  But even at its dreadful worst, there is no comparison to today’s PPP.  The millions were smaller.  The projects were fewer.  The openings were narrower.  The perps were sloppier.  The supporting networks (institutional and political) were slimmer.

Look at a handful of what makes the news nowadays, how the crime opportunities proliferate.  It could be a bridge, an old hotel, a new hotel, an energy project, an overseas junket, a lease, a real estate development, a land deal, a natural resources award, or any number of public works projects, and the opportunity for the commission of a crime is noted and seized.  Which other group in Guyana is, who else is there, encroaching on the criminal turf of the PPP and its criminal perps? Name any upstart presence that dares to interfere (try a ting) for a piece of the criminal action now monopolised by the party? By process of elimination, by default, crime wave is snuffed out, and a criminal enterprise does not do justice, relative to the near total stranglehold that Freedom House has on white-collar (and other) crimes in Guyana.  PPP crimes are more than born and bred in the capital.  They are also regional in the roots planted, the rotted trees existing.  Move from village to village, and PPP crimes flourish, the party cabals and criminals prosper.  Go from town to country, and it is more of the same crimes: money, more money, always something wrong, missing a link, smelling bad, not adding up.  From heartland to hinterland, and tentacles of PPP crimes reach deep, brook no intrusion.  If the PPP is not a national criminal institution, then there is none other that qualifies.

To provide how the rot is riotous, a revealing aside is helpful. A PPP faithful is back in the fold.  He is a straight arrow.  He is a known commodity for pedigree, loyalty, and honesty.  But he is looked upon with suspicion, locked out.  Why?  He will be watcher, objector, and troublemaker because of his qualities.  He will see too much, agitate, resist.  So, his place is outside.  He might as well be PNC, but is not, never will be.  This is the ugly, dirty story of putridity that is the PPP of today.  Pause and take note of Guyana as it stands now under PPP dominance and its criminal contrivances.  State institutions are tottering, or all but collapsed.  The judiciary is an apology, other than for a few who are competent, conscientious, and wise in law and justice.  Real justice, not the party’s brand of it. The security forces are compromised, a tool of PPP malevolence and oppressions.  Instead of protecting law-abiding citizens, protective agencies put their highest priority towards the protection of the interests and ambitions of the PPP criminal legion(s).  Civil society is largely infiltrated, a wet rag, a conscienceless and characterless body, other than for a few intrepid women and a small cadre of spirited male voices.  On and on, the national blight proliferates.  Commercial mercenaries throughout.

So, what is left to resist the steamroller effect of a PPP crime juggernaut running downhill at increasing acceleration?  The independent media, a three-legged tripod standing for the time being.  It has been subject to ferocious assaults, slanders, and other revulsions from political reprobates.  This is where Guyana is.  This is what is left.  In sum, this is what the PPP is all about.  My fellow Guyanese, and to any interested Americans, I present the People’s Progressive Party, a national criminal institution, beyond compare.

(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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• governance, People’s Progressive Party (PPP), practices, question, valleys

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