…for SARA
Clive Thomas was the fella who introduced the term “criminalized state” into the Guyanese lexicon. He insisted that it was the PPP Government that had “criminalized” the Guyanese state during their 23 years at the helm through all kinds of slick manoeuvres to “siphon off billions and billions from the treasury”. The man didn’t call the state that Burnham left the PPP “criminalized”. Never mind they assassinated his buddy Walter Rodney and some other members of the WPA!
So when Thomas – the big time Marxist economist who’d written for donkey years about how those dastardly capitalists has discarded our “working class” like sucked oranges – and his WPA became a part of the APNU/AFC coalition that won the 2015 elections, he asked for the job to recover all the moola siphoned off by the departed PPP. And got it when they launched a “State Assets Recovery Unit” (SARU) operating out of the Ministry of the Presidency. He promised he’d recover so much loot he’d practically finance the entire Budget!!
Problem was – there’s no legislation on the books for any such unit to go around investigating and seizing people’s property. The PPP’s complaint about “illegal witch-hunting” fell on deaf ears. SARU and Thomas didn’t let the lack of legalities (or Thomas’s clear bias) hinder the Government’s drive to hunt down PPP officials. Liberally interpreting the “forensic audits” of Government departments – SARU just basically threw mud by the ton at PPP officials.
After months of “investigations” – rather than confessing they really had nothing on their targets (and if they did, they could’ve passed it on to the Police for prosecution), they finally confessed they needed legislation to legalise their status. They were going to be changed from a “Unit” in the Presidency to an “Agency” of Parliament. SARU would become SARA. So, what was going to be different? Money, that’s what. Not RECOVERING money, unfortunately – but SPENDING it!!
They got a budget of over $225 million – a quarter of a billion dollars!! – and a staff of over 40!! Jeez!! This was proportionately more than what J. Edgar Hoover got when he started the FBI!! But what the $1.3M man Thomas did was dole out goodies to himself and his buddies – especially of the Afrocentric persuasion. Up came Eric Phillips from ACDA as his “personal assistant” at a salary of $980,000/monthly. Tacuma Ogunseye from ACDA and WPA was also hired; ex GDF Maj Aubrey Heath Hetemeyer who headed a Pan-African outfit in NYC clocked in with $900,000 monthly.
So, after spending some $1BILLION – with nothing to show for it, the PPP has decided to shut them down.
Expect to hear outraged squeals of “persecution!!l” of the “brothers”.
…to Volda
Volda Lawrence is probably ruefully echoing Marlon Brando’s famous line from “On the Waterfront”: “I coulda been a contender”!! Here she was, Chairwoman of the PNCR, Minister of Health etc., and within a few months, she’s not only been pulled from her pedestal, but it looks like she just won’t be allowed to get back on her feet.
First Granger – who wanted his protege Harmon as the power broker in the PNC – didn’t even select her for Parliament. He put Harmon as the Leader of the Opposition, which everyone, including Volda, had assumed would’ve been hers. Now all she can do is to show up at PNC affairs when Granger’s not there. Then yesterday came the coup de grace: she was hauled into CID headquarters, questioned, and finally charged with “conspiracy to defraud”.
And all she did – she probably figures – was to act in the proudest tradition of the PNC Founder Leader Burnham: help to rig an election!!
But she forgot that Burnham never got his hands dirty. He left that to the help!
… Chinese funding?
Who said it was only the Chinese who have deep pockets? Well, the US is throwing down the gauntlet by sending the head of their development banks with US $200B on the table!!
Take that China!!
