There ought to be hefty kerfuffle among defenders of the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC), particularly the ABC diplomats, as senior Cabinet Members confirmed that APNU/AFC has abandoned global standards and norms for appointments and procurement of goods and services. The APNU/AFC has proclaimed a new standard for good governance – merit is being replaced by patronage with political donors and sycophants rewarded with jobs and preferred for sole-sourcing of goods and services.
APNU/AFC has a name for this new governance model – honorific, just like the royalty of old, baptising corruption and patronage under a new name. Corruption under any name is still corruption, repugnant and criminal. But APNU/AFC has made an art of deeming those things they railed against when the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) was in Government as unequivocally normal today. Truth is, most of what they condemned the PPP for was half-truths and total fabrications. Yet today, in less than a year, they have taken corruption to unimaginable heights.
Government anoints the new model as honorific and Trotman deems it as returns on investment, the investment being donations to APNU/AFC. In the meanwhile, legitimate businesses that play by the rules are left on the wayside and people appointed in accordance with laws are being fired. But under a honorific model of governance, this is the new gold standard for a democracy, APNU/AFC style. The sad reality is that the same ABC countries that gave us rigged elections, the Burnham dictatorship and the Rodney assassination are “gaga” over the honorific model for democracy.
The Guyanese taxpayers are ignorant of these appointments. We know of some people who were appointed as Government representatives in the Diaspora and those appointed to represent Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo in all the geographic regions of Guyana. There are various advisors at the Office of the President (OP) and new diplomats, many with salaries and benefits that PPP Ministers did not get.
One donor got a contract to supply fertilisers at a price higher than the market price. He has no experience in procuring and supplying fertilisers, but this sole-sourcing of an important agricultural product amounting to US million is part of an honorific reward for donations made during the 2015 elections. Another is set to build a wind farm worth billion and given a contract to supply medicines by the next election.
There is now the sole-sourcing contract to supply rice to Jamaica. The Jamaican purchaser has been buying rice from Guyana for years. The present exporters have been replaced by a sole-sourcing arrangement, with players that were involved in rice export in the late 1980s. The price that Guyana gets will be US0 per ton and the sole-sourcing agents will get US per ton. APNU/AFC has tried to propagate the lie that this is a better price than Jamaica has paid before, although it is below the 2014 and 2015 prices.
Dozens of forensic audits were ordered by APNU/AFC, costing more than 0 million. Remarkably, the auditors main findings is that there were several sole-sourcing contracts, while completely oblivious that they were themselves hired through sole-sourcing without any reasonable justification. The hypocrisy stinks when sole-sourcing agents condemn the practice of sole-sourcing when they are not the beneficiary. It is shameful and insulting to the Guyanese people.
Sadly, as Guyana catapults towards dictatorship, arrogance rules. It is the reason sugar workers are told to take it or leave it when offered zero wage increase, rice farmers are told they are on their own as they battle various crises, farmers land leases are revoked to be given to others, and we are warned that if Granger pays taxes, the treasury will pay him back. Calling corruption honorific will not change the sad truth that a few in APNU/AFC will be jet-setting on the backs of ordinary Guyanese people, while Guyana sinks into another hellhole. (Send comments to [email protected])
