Latest update September 11th, 2026 10:26 AM
Greater accountability
(Kaieteur News) – Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo cannot be for real. Greater accountability demanded from PPPC Government ministers, and senior government officials. He has to be joking, must not have consulted with President Irfaan Ali to get the real story of the standards of the PPPC Government.
It was the president who deposited the incredible in the public domain. ‘The PPPC Government is the most transparent government in the history of this country’. The president’s logic was simple: a transparent government has nothing to hide. It, therefore, can only be a government that takes accountability with the utmost seriousness. So, in the first anniversary celebrations of the PPPC second consecutive victory at the polls, and strengthening its control of power and over Guyanese, it is shocking to see and hear Jagdeo going near to procurement breaches and threatening consequences.
Who committed such breaches? How many from the PPPC Government apparatus are involved? And, how out of control are these procurement breaches that Jagdeo felt impelled to arrange an audience of ministers and senior officials and then let fly? Vice President Jagdeo is too much of a political veteran to engage in any such activity, without being on solid grounds. He warns about accountability means that whatever accountability there is, it is negligible. When he has to resort to the menacing, there is only one interpretation: the government is in a deep hole.
From our own experience, with Jagdeo, it is not his style to call his people to book publicly. He reserves his venom and aggression for people from the media and those from civil society who question how the PPPC Government conducts the people’s business, manages the billions. He goes on the attack when there are questions or comments about the secrecy, the blatant procurement breaches, the evaluations that insult the intelligence of citizens, and the tendering process that is plagued by inconsistencies, through awards that fly in the face of commonsense. It is why we cannot believe that Jagdeo did what he did, and did so in full public view.
We think that what Guyanese are witnessing is Jagdeo, a PPPC Government vice president in full damage control mode. The situation has to be desperate that he breaks with his own standards and practices. Instead of defending, he is letting loose, and in a state of carefully managed impatience and anger. There comes that time when there is too much corruption, and more cannot be tolerated. Because doing so, staying quiet, risks putting the entire PPP machinery at risk. Jagdeo is playing the long game. A billion dollars stolen today through procurement violations bring much joy for the recipients. Should there be a change in government, however, there could a lot of empty jail cells occupied by corrupt government ministers and other officials.
Corruption at beyond denial, beyond coverup, levels could lead to a change in government. The exposures have been many, and the government loses ground with every new revelation. This is where the vice president is at his best. If there is one instinct in Jagdeo that is finely tuned, it is his antenna for danger. Few other Guyanese in the political realm possesses his sensitivity to the state of the environment, and what it is telling him cannot be avoided any longer. Therefore, there must be some effort to put a foot down and stop it. There is no foot in the PPPC Government that can stamp down harder and make its heaviness felt more than Vice President and PPP General Secretary, Jagdeo. That is why there was that rare instance of frankness at the Convention Centre. Ministers and officers in attendance know where they stand, and it is not in a comfortable place. Nobody in the government or the party wants to get on the wrong side of him. We think that the corruption levels are so high, the procurement breaches are so frequent, that Jagdeo could not pretend any longer that they do not exist. Or that critics of the government are inflating the situation, to get at his party. There had better be pulling up of socks, and changing of attitudes. If not, party people will be gone, according to Jagdeo. We are not believers.
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