APNU/AFC: a Government of excuses – Ramotar

… says acts of incompetence, corruption stacking up daily

The 16-month-old A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government is being described as one “full of excuses” by former President of Guyana, Donald Ramotar, who said daily, Guyanese are seeing the true face of the President David Granger-led coalition Administration for which the acts of incompetence and corruption are stacking up.

Since the APNU/AFC coalition unseated the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) in May 2015, it has been under fire for a number of blunders and was called into question over several “shady” contractual arrangements.
Among them was the lavish inauguration of President David Granger on May 16, 2015, a mere four days after his party won the national elections; the Georgetown clean-up exercise which followed the inauguration; the Durban Park Project; and most recently, the highly controversial and shady Sussex Street Drug Bond deal, along with the hiring of a number of convicts in top Government positions.
In an interview with Guyana Times on Monday, Ramotar, who served as President of Guyana from 2011-2015, hauled the Administration over the coals for these missteps which he said exposed the true nature of how corrupt the Government is.
Ramotar went on to chronicle the shady transactions of the coalition over the past 16 months, noting that the nation “has come full circle” and is returning to the days of the People’s National Congress (PNC) when corruption and “rape of the treasury “ was the order of the day.
“The bond deal is the latest in a series of things that have happened… the tax write-off to people, the settlements sometimes even before people go to court, people being given positions as a payback for the financial support to the coalition during the campaign, like the ambassador who was convicted in the US. We have also seen the immorality of huge salary increases for ministers and the bloating of the bureaucracy, employing more people at high prices,” he stated.
Taking these into account, Ramotar scolded the President and his Ministers, who he said are “full of excuses” when these grave infractions are highlighted.
“This is a Government full of excuses, that’s all they do, make excuses for every blunder, rather and addressing these issues with a firm fist. Ramjattan is saying that the Government is not a Cabinet of angels and even the President is making excuses about mistakes that were made, but nothing is being done to put measures in place to stop this corruption that is now eating into the Guyanese society,” Ramotar lamented.
Speaking to what he described as the “failed promise” of the AFC to keep the coalition Government intact when it assumed power, Ramotar said the Khemraj Ramjattan-led party has its own struggles to defend the credibility of those questionable characters it recommended for top positions.
“The AFC and Ramjattan can’t make no significant contribution to anything, because they are always busy trying to defend some fraud they recommend for a position in the Government. They are always busy begging for the coalition to keep on the people they asked to be appointed,” Ramotar said with a chuckle.
Recently, the coalition Administration has been under severe pressure from political commentators and anti-corruption advocates for what was described as an abandonment of its own campaign promises and principles which were centred on transparency, accountability and the elimination of corruption at all levels of Government.