Last week I wrote about the coalition Government’s propensity for ludicrous, preposterous statements. APNU/AFC’s daily statements disrespect the nation and insult citizens. Their statements also expose their authoritarian, dictatorial DNA. As they govern with an iron fist, their actions are not chaperoned by any moral compass.
There is simply no moral cavity. There is a phrase used in criminal law – Moral Turpitude – to describe conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty, or good morals. Truly, APNU/AFC governance pillories moral turpitude on a daily basis. As they plunge Guyana into dictatorship, APNU/AFC act with an increasing quality of baseness, vileness and depravity.
I will never be guided by false diplomacy, nor will I ever ignore my responsibility to speak out. No citizen should hesitate to speak out against the baseness, vileness and depravity that APNU/AFC subject us to in our country today. It is said that, over history, the most egregious acts that have been perpetuated against humanity were made possible by people’s silence. Wrongs committed against people by a government often are because governments were permitted to do so by the silence of good people. Every day, APNU/AFC subject us to vile statements that unfortunately reflect their governance model. They feel they have no obligation to the people they serve. APNU/AFC, in fact, treat people as their subjects, much like the old time royalty, when kings ruled over their subjects.
Minister Jordon, in one of his many impersonations of a brutish king, recently insisted that the Exxon oil contract cannot be released because the PPP had signed the contract with a secrecy clause. The argument is not only ludicrous, but is an abdication of their duty as the people’s government. They had promised that APNU/AFC would be transparent and would release all contracts to the people. They deemed secrecy clauses as illegal and criminal. They must now prove that the PPP did sign a secrecy clause, and they have an obligation to abandon that secrecy clause.
In any case, did they not try to convince people that EXXON and the possibility of oil flowing in Guyana was an APNU/AFC success story? Are they now, by their own admission, conceding that Exxon was brought to Guyana by Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP? Having conceded that it was Jagdeo and the PPP that initiated the oil find in Guyana, and that it was the PPP that brought the company to our country, they now want to hide what they are giving away.
The agreement was signed in 1999, when there was still uncertainty of whether or not Guyana possessed oil fields with feasible amounts for commercialisation. They insist there is nothing in the contract people do not already know. If we already know everything, what is the purpose for secrecy?
The PPP signed the Amaila Hydropower deal. APNU/AFC disowned it and discontinued it. I believe that a government must respect and honour previous government commitments.
But this is not the moral or legal compass that guides APNU/AFC, because if it were, then they would have respected the agreement with Amaila.
Incidentally, the PPP had an agreement with the people — that all our children in school would have an annual grant of ,000; our pensioners would benefit from water and electricity subsidies; sugar estates would remain open; rice farmers would have a fair price for a bag of paddy; and people would have safe and reliable access to medicines in our hospitals and clinics. All of these contracts have been disowned and abandoned.
