APNU/AFC has a huge propensity to distort the truth and simply lie in order to confuse and distract the Guyanese people. It has made such a colossal mess of the social and economic conditions in the country that it feels compelled to divert people’s attention away from the corruption, incompetence and clueless path on which it has taken Guyana.
Take the mess of the allegedly missing US million from the Chinese company which purchased the Government’s GTT shares. According to APNU/AFC, the Chinese company allegedly paid the US million owed. The communication czar of APNU/AFC, Raphael Trotman, (yes even that portfolio has been taken away from Nagamootoo), this week claimed they were unable to track down the payment, implying that someone stole the money.
But many millions of dollars were spent on a trip to China, supposedly to track down the payment of the US million that the Chinese company owed for the GTT shares. Did someone not ask who paid the money, to whom and how they paid the money? No one could leave China with US million in cash in a suitcase. The Auditor General had already determined that up to the end of December 31, 2015, the US million was not paid. Did Harmon find evidence that the money was paid sometime in 2016? Did he find out how and when and to whom payment was made?
Nagamootoo made an expensive trip to Mexico and came back and assured the rice farmers that Mexico had agreed to buy rice from Guyana. This was at a time when Guyana had lost its most lucrative and biggest rice market in Venezuela. People were up in arms with the reckless loss of the Venezuelan market. Nagamootoo gave the impression that the Mexico would more than make up for the loss of the Venezuelan market. It has been more than seven months now and APNU/AFC has gone completely silent on the Mexico rice market while not a grain of paddy has been exported to Mexico.
APNU/AFC initially told the people that Wales Sugar Estate was being closed because the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) had recommended the closure of estates. It lied because the CoI specifically insisted that closure should not be considered. Having been exposed, the President insisted GuySuCo made the decision and APNU/AFC went along. In fact, GuySuCo had expended hundreds of millions to prepare new cultivation, improved irrigation and drainage and enhance the Wales factory just before the APNU/AFC’s announcement of the closure.
Incidentally, I was Minister of Agriculture between 2011 and May 2015 and none of the managers or directors of the Board ever once discussed the possibility of closure of Wales or any other estate. Twice I took GuySuCo to the Economic Services Committee of Parliament and never did the closure of estates been signalled. I challenge the managers and the Board and APNU/AFC to provide any evidence that closure was considered during the period between 2011 and 2015. If, in fact, as the present CEO insists, the PPP Government had considered the complete closure of LBI, how come no one discussed the closure timeline with the Minister of Agriculture between the period of 2011 and 2015? I commend Mr Jairam Petam, the Human Resources Director at the time, for revealing the truth that there was never any plan for the complete closure of LBI. Truth is APNU/AFC instructed GuySuCo to close Wales and LBI and more closure will follow.
Guyana has been named as one of ten countries in the Caribbean where Americans have been warned that they have a greater chance of being murdered than in America itself. In fact, the murder rate for the first quarter of 2016 exceeds the murder rate for 2015. Crime is spiralling out of control in our country. We are busy looking for who might have thrown faeces on one of their supporters a few years ago and ignore that just this past week a man and his wife were brutally set on fire in their home.
We have abandoned all the big transformative, job-creating infrastructure projects and think that the D’Urban Park Project is more important for the Jubilee celebration. We have embraced big business and the rich, giving them honorific titles and granting waivers of their taxes, while increasing 140 taxes on the poor people, even the donkey carts that carry garbage. We think that overpaying for the CPL finals will make people forget about the social and economic mess our country is in. Most people fear that 2016 is the start of another epic period of failure in our country. In the meantime, APNU/AFC is preoccupied with lying, distorting and distracting people. (Send comments to [email protected])
