…on Broadcasting
Here your Eyewitness had been protesting for months (a year and a half?) about our dear Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo being denied the powers of his office – don’t even talk about those under the “Cummingsburg Accord”. And now it’s been revealed in one shameful episode when he was begged to exercise even the vestigial power left – he refused to do so!!
Your Eyewitness is of course referring to the entreaties and pleas of the Chairman of GNBA – who falls under the PM’s diminished portfolio of “media” – for the PM to intervene in the mockery of Tony Vieira was making in the functioning of the Board of the GNBA, because he refused to accept the authority of the said Chair, Leonard Craig.
In an exchange reminiscent of an earlier one between Peter D’Aguiar and Forbes Burnham – in which Burnham said D’Aguiar felt he could treat the PNC “like a carton of used drinks bottles” – Tony Vieira, an ordinary Board Member, screamed at Craig: “Do you know who I am?? I am a Vieira!” Now Vieira couldn’t possibly be talking about his qualifications as a broadcaster. That would have meant admitting he’d failed ignominiously once he didn’t have the monopoly protection of the PNC, where he just stole content from the skies and was allowed to charge Guyanese for it!
No! He had to be referring to his social class – where he couldn’t be shaken from his belief that a fella like Craig had to obey him as a member of what he still sees as “the ruling class” – even though Craig was officially his superior. And this is what Craig had pointed out to his boss Nagamootoo. But the man who claimed he was a follower of Jagan in fighting for the dignity of the ordinary man – was evidently not only struck dumb, but blind. He claimed he couldn’t read the letters Craig sent him with the complaints!! Well… how about all those reports in the press for all these months. Nagamootoo couldn’t possibly have been too busy to read those, could he? What? With being neutered and all! Or if he’s really insisting on his “perks” – as the world on the ground insists – doesn’t his shill summarize the news for him every morning?
But really the problem isn’t the powers of a Nagamootoo (or the lack thereof). It’s the problem of the AFC in general and Nagamootoo and Ramjattan in particular. The AFC has no clout with the APNU any longer – and the mentioned leaders couldn’t care less – once they have their “positions and perks”.
But then again, why’s your Eyewitness surprised? Wasn’t he told Nagamootoo was “all talk and no action”?
…in Finance Ministry
When APNU and AFC were in the Opposition, Auditor General (AG) Reports were like Stone Tablets handed down behind burning bushes. The contents were used like battering rams against the PPP administration – chastising them on every slip there might’ve been between the (spending) cup and the (accounting) lip. But now they’re in government, suddenly it looks like the AG has lost his halo!!
Here you have the Finance Minister (FM) issuing one of the strongest attacks on the integrity of the AG’s Office, even as he insisted the latter was an “autonomous body” and he “doesn’t wasn’t to trample on that autonomy”. If your Eyewitness were of a poetic bent he would’ve said, “methinks the FM protesteth too much!!” How else can you describe his assessment of the AG’s Report as “designed to inflame rather than educate and inform”?
The AG, dear FM, is supposed to just tell it as he saw IT – the government’s books. And no! He doesn’t have to have the FM “edit” his report!
…on fairness
If the FM thinks he was done wrong by the AG, for having the departments’ heads – and not him – comment on the report before publishing, is he sympathetic to NEW GPC not even getting a chance to show they’d shipped all their pharma?
