Corruption: PPP Government great pretenders 

Jul 25, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – It was African American Country and Western singer, Charley Pride, who sang ‘Snakes crawl at night’.  This being Guyana, they crawl in broad daylight also.  Straight out of Robb Street (Freedom House), and slither from wherever else the leaders in the PPP Government make their nests.  Corruption has been a common theme in Guyana under different PPP Governments, but when raised in the public domain, such has been dealt with contemptuously, given the back of the hand.  Where is the evidence, was the refrain.  Leaders hedged, they denied, they dissembled, and they erected walls to shield what was going on.  As Guyanese say, ‘moon duz run till day ketch am.’  It is the creole equivalent of the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.  Look at them now and listen to them today.

Guyana’s two most esteemed citizens, men knowledge in the ways of local political corruption, President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo are now working up a sweat against corruption.  Men who used to make all sorts of excuses, worked full-time to beat away those raising a stink about the corruption devil in this country, are now raising hell about this national pestilence and how much they are committed to doing something about it.  Something here, more things over there, and everything that they can do.  A bad odor is smelled.  I go back to something that I have been saying in the public domain for decades: it is one thing to mislead and misuse Indian and African and Amerindian Guyanese and make jokes of them.  It is quite another kettle of fish (make that foolishness) to attempt to do the same thing with the white people.  My fellow Guyanese, just look at how Dr. Ali and Dr. Jagdeo are besides themselves with one dance after another.  Today, they own, operate, and control the anti-corruption dance floor.  There is no voice more against corruption than two of the bigger hollow barrels in Guyana, regardless of what the issue is.

The Americans spoke and the two Guyanese Brave hearts run amok.  There will be laws.  Hear, hear!  There will be tightening.  Bravo.  There will be hell to pay.  Now that is a revelation.  Time to take these delicious pronouncements of Masters Ali and Jagdeo in perspective.  Even a place as sanctified as the Vatican City has had its share of depraved and corrupt officers.  So, why not Guyana?  Going a step or two farther east, there is Teheran, and in the heart of what is held out as a theocracy, with allegations of corruption flourishing.  T There are reports that God is distracted, his presence is needed elsewhere.  If in places as spiritually refined as those two that the dirty c word has a foundation and can be a problem, then what about unholy, deep state Guyana?  What about a political party like the PPP and a national government (the PPP again) where impenetrable darkness is a 24/7 situation?  What about an entity where dark people (not the color of their skin) with dark desires and dark deeds to match are the order of the day?

But there is this army that now declares war against corruption.  My fellow Guyanese, if nothing else, please get some sense.  The war against corruption that Masters Ali and Jagdeo are now bubbling over with is a phony war.  There are financial corruptions, then there are other kinds of corruption.  Let me help a little: verbal corruption.  Corruption did not just parachute from across the Pacific Ocean like the Covid-19 virus.  It was here all the time, with the warnings, the intelligence, and the pleas all multiplying.  Corruption under the PPP Government (previous and present) has grown from strength to strength.  Now it is a beast, but there are the local beauties (Ali and Jagdeo) talking up a storm about taming it.  Somebody thinks that I am going senile, or mistaking the Guyanese people for illiterates, and not understanding a word of the English Language.  Or able to interpret the environment.  I peek at the ordinary in Guyanese life.

Noise nuisance it is called.  Some in the smart PPP set may laugh and ask what’s the point, what mileage could be had from that.  Noise nuisance is audible, visible, and countrywide from what I hear, despite a hodgepodge of on and off interventions.  The perps are mainly PPP folks, and even in Region Three, President Ali’s past and present neighborhood.  They have the resources to take care of business the quick and easy way.  They do, and protective institutions take another hit for lack of effort, for collusion, and for corruption.  The louder and longer the music, the richer the trail of evidence.  The regular villagers and residents elsewhere pay the price.  Those responsible are left alone, and everyone takes a break until the next day when it is back to the ear-busting business practice.  If that can’t be fixed due to political connections, police reach, and the power of good old-fashion cash on the barrel, then how can this PPP as a party and as a government pretend at making a dent in the bigger, meatier, self-enriching things that savage Guyana?  Like corruption surrounding that murder on Main Street?  Like tax evasion?  Like money laundering?  Like gold smuggling, and other smuggling? Like public procurement?

Rum drinkers and noisemakers have been blessed with official seal of Untouchables, aka sacred cows.  But now these two glorious sons of Guyana, Irfaan Ali and Bharrat Jagdeo are prattling away about what they are going to do to clean house relative to what the Yanks put on the table.  The table was there before and there was similar stuff on it.  The difference today is that the Americans spoke of a “network”.  It is more sprawling, and it reaches high, very high, into the PPP Government.  Ayuh kno dat deh duz seh in Guyana: two teef maan is wha mek gawd laff.  If I had the stash, I would readily give a million to see American Ambassador Theriot’s face, while these two great pretenders in the PPP play their games and sing their songs.  Something tells me that Her Excellency is not laughing.  Regarding President Irfaan Ali and VP Jagdeo, Tony Williams and the Platters they are not.  They fool nobody.  Maybe on something else.  But not on their new anticorruption religion and drive.

(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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• Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, governments, Guyana, pretenders, Vice President

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