Charges against Dr Singh, Brassington are frivolous, vexatious (Part 2)

Dear Editor,

In an earlier letter, I highlighted the fact that the charges brought by SOCU/SARA against Dr Ashni Singh and Mr Brassington are “frivolous and vexatious” in the law and should be withdrawn. My reasons are: you cannot charge ministers of Government for carrying out their duties expeditiously and successfully; it defies intelligence.Where in that charge was the state of Guyana negatively impacted by those ministers’ decisions? The answer is nowhere. For the very same reason, I think the DPP has dismissed charges against the five ministers of this present Government. She would have contended that for sitting ministers to be charged in dispensing their duties in office, it would be improper, seeing they are in the process of doing “their work.” It would also cause a logistical nightmare having to summon ministers from their “busy” schedule to attend court, and having to sift through volumes of paperwork. This should not happen. Not a legal answer, because no one should be immune from prosecution, Government nor Opposition, but plausible enough for the common man to go with. So, these charges brought against Dr Singh and Mr Brassington would not stand the test in a court of law,but would only amount to another “witch hunt,” another futile attempt to besmirch the good name of these noble gentlemen. But, let me get back to my main discourse. Governments are given the mandate to manage the ship of state in a developmental way, and this is done by careful planning and meticulous execution of same. Experts Singh and Brassington are living testimony to those principles, the indelible evidence is shown in decades of sustainable growth for our country.  To do otherwise runs against the grain of economic strategy and economic principles; that is: Governments must provide the framework for development to take place. That framework was exemplified in Dr Singh’s policy of “getting the best deals in the market,” as well as by “attracting” the Internationals to invest.  This principle is the root cause for Sir Arthur Lewis earning The Nobel Prize for Economics. You must lay the groundwork or provide the climate for investment. Poor, oftentimes underdeveloped countries like Guyana have grave difficulty attracting foreign investment. It is a huge problem. No one would want to come to a country where the infrastructure is archaic and rundown, in certain cases non-existent; and where telecommunications, cable and Internet are still in the Stone Age. To attract these investors, there must be some incentive to attract them, affordable land is one of those incentives.  Those of our tourist neighbours who are already entrenched in the multi-million tourist industry utilise that principle by granting tax holidays. It is normal, routine procedure for Governments to grant five, most often 10 years of tax holidays to large foreign companies to invest in the Caribbean. It marks progressive thinking and forward planning. Well, judging the book from the PNC’s SOCU’s and SARA’s Standards, this would be gross misconduct and fraud of state funds. The progressive Caribbean neighbours, on the other hand, would be laughing themselves to sleep to ascertain where the Guyanese are going with such retrograde thinking. Following the PNC’s line of reasoning, then we must investigate the establishment of all those housing schemes that were established under the PPP/C regime, examples are Sophia, La Parfaite Harmonie, Little Diamond, Cummings Lodge. All of these mega housing areas which provide housing for poor Guyanese were created from scratch, with lands which were acquired as a result of purchasing at undervalued market prices.  Should we haul those poor land owners before the court to have their lands revalued and make them pay the state the true price? You see where I am going and how ridiculous these charges are? And to think of it, we are only talking about the purchase price for the landed property, what if we compute the price paid for the modernization of those areas, bringing them into habitable housing; the roads, water, electrification, drainage, telecommunication and the like? Here you get the real picture of how backward their misconduct charge is. There is a whole gamut of information, processes, facts and figures you would have to go through in order to ascertain misconduct, and I don’t think this Government, far less its Attorney General, who is extremely limited (and that is putting it mildly) can sensibly defend. Thus far, what the PNC have succeeded in doing is to bare their witch hunting abilities before a hapless, hopeless nation that they themselves have pauperized. This is done by a bunch of geriatrics who lack the brain as well as manpower to govern in a civilized manner. Their unintelligent and base posturing is becoming more and more intolerable, as their time to demit office draws near.

Sincerely,
Neil  Adams