Jagdeo on breaches, accountability - Pt 3

Jagdeo on breaches, accountability – Pt 3

Sep 14, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

(Kaieteur News) – Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo is a lonely figure; worthy of pity. It’s extended. He is that saddest of leaders: a caricature for lost causes. Breach procurement laws and regs and there will be consequences. Not one attendee in that Arthur Chung Convention Centre suite blanched in fright, or hung their head from guilt-infested conscience. Not one made a mental note to himself or herself. Why should they? Heard before. Same as before. Nothing changes on the corruption front in Guyana. PPP Gov’t Guyana. Billions for procurement. There will be leakages; accommodations made for human nature. It’s bad taste to let those billions go to waste. Billions generate millions of temptations, slightly less opportunities. The outcomes make Dr. Jagdeo tear up, actually cry. Who can be so callous, as not to feel a pang of sorrow? I do.

I had warned him: rope in comrades’ thieveries. Scale down their obscene accumulations of wealth. Wealth defying explanation, reason, wage arithmetic. Jagdeo snarled, cursed. He did; or surrogates lunged. Now he’s all remorse, wet eyed. What did he expect when the standard recruitment policy, hiring criteria, of the PPP Gov’t contain three prongs? Only hire, welcome, and associate with people who are corrupt. Or inclined towards corruption. Or have no problems with corruption. Or won’t say a word, nor wag a reproving finger, when they are surrounded by corrupt practices and corrupt people. What did he expect? Why is he lamenting? When that was the PPP architecture and apparatus erected? Reality now hangs over his head. From high-level activity in agriculture to that tragic plunge into aquatic depths. Monstrosity and mystery on a wide expanse of land; murder and misery on a vast expanse of water. If three men, honest toilers operating under duress, can be charged with murder, the noun belongs. But not on their heads. Not on the heads of two ministers. Murder rightfully belongs higher, where ownership should rightly reside. It’s all part of the corruption that Jagdeo moaned, but danced around.

He groans warnings about future procurement breaches and slashes the air with his hands. There will be consequences. Start with the boat that went down, Mr. Bharrat. Address past corruptions involving billions. Have those been pardoned, given some sort of amnesty? When the kind of people (as specified above) are the only ones hired by the PPP, it’s foregone that everything touched automatically becomes tainted. This is what Dr. Jagdeo finally came around to, with grudging, belated recognition. He is much cleverer than he is making out. But he is now limited. His power to control has whittled away, been worked around. For there are other circumstances and mentalities that Jagdeo is now forced to confront. A new breed in the PPP Government, with a few outstanding, sees the local world differently than Excellency Jagdeo. Where the vice president sees perversity, they see the purity of opportunity. There’s this contradiction inside the PPP hierarchy where the profane is held as profound. Hence, turbulence spirits that don’t settle. It is how grasping men soil everything they stare at, eventually sample with relish. In pondering this, an old Guyanese saying comes to mind – ‘two smaat maan duz mek gawd laff.’ Guyanese must figure out who they are.

Last, General Secretary Jagdeo is advised to tread lightly. He goes dangerously close to what is held sacred locally, is worshipped in PPP Government circles. Money. Men don’t part willingly with easy money, free money. Six years of oil wealth led to that mindset taking hold. Now the PPP’s own champion wants to put an end to the fun. I don’t know whether he pretends or is genuine about consequences for procurement breaches. But I know these things. His audit machinery has to be dismantled. He has to impose his will to fulfill his threats. Whatever Bharrat Jagdeo’s latest crusade, he faces this reality: few in the PPP are pleased with him, fewer in Guyana believe him. I don’t.

(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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accountability, Bharrat Jagdeo, breaches, GHK Lall

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