…at Enmore
If anyone needed proof of the clear and present danger posed to our nation and its future by SARA, as presently organised, then its Enmore “extraction” of 15 old computers from the NDC has to be the smoking gun. Like the song from the “Sound of Music” advises, let’s start from the very beginning. Shall we?
The state assets to be recovered by SARA should’ve been already stolen or pilfered, or snogged or whatever. No? Meaning, we should be talking about “past tense” actions. But the Enmore NDC merely DISCUSSED, at a statutory meeting, the SELLING of the used computers. Was the procedure for buying and selling used equipment by the NDC violated? 
These things can happen, we know; but does this violation of procedure amount to “stealing”?? Or did it warrant the summoning SARA?? A buyer getting a good deal on a sale can say he “got a steal,” but is it actually “stealing”??
In an EASTER MONDAY editorial, the Chronic claimed the “NDC Chair would benefit”. Now, on other days, it would be okay; but the Chronic wouldn’t lie on Easter Monday. Would it? Jeez! What does it profit a man….?
But we return to the need for “past tense” actions before SARA springs into action — as specified in the legislation. (Which hadn’t been passed then, but we’ll let that slide for now.) Who decided that a POSSIBLE crime which MAY be in the process of being committed falls within the mandate of SARA? Well, with the panoply of powers possessed by the director, it would have to be him. Wouldn’t it? The director can do “ANYTHING” which he considers appropriate once he deems it incidental to the discharge of his function!!
And not only that, he can delegate his immense powers to anyone he feel he wants to. So here you have it: either Thomas, Director and the co-leader of the WPA; or his Deputy Director, Retmeyer, launches — on info supplied by the APNU NDC Councillor Deochan Singh — a search and seizure operation against a PPP-dominated NDC. Without the warrant that’s supposed to protect the innocent. “We got information that these computers were there, and that they were not in use, and that some people on the NDC were about to get rid of them; whatever get rid of means – selling them or giving them away – I don’t know.”
Even if we give Thomas and his deputy the benefit of the doubt, isn’t this like using a hammer to kill a mosquito on the head of your suspect? If there’s “reasonable cause”, shouldn’t it have been balanced against the ‘reasonable doubt” that Retmeyer himself articulated?
But that isn’t what SARA is about. Is it? GET PPP!!!
…in the Assembly
Those sympathetic to Raphael Trotman’s “Holy Thursday” excuse for truncating the SARA debate must’ve exclaimed, “Holy Moly!!” when they heard the real dirt. And dirt it was. Now, first of all, don’t think that, because the fellas and felines had been yakking away from 2-9pm, they would’ve been starving. Don’t forget that afternoon break for dinner, which dents the Assembly Budget by $1.7M a pop! And that figure was back in the day when Chivas Regal wasn’t served!
But back to the Holy Thursday cut-off of the debate at 9pm by Trotman. He didn’t just gag Nandlall, who was the legal point-man for the PPP on this legislation — which violated so many legal rules it seemed to be a question to test third-year law students — it also gagged PM Moses Nagamootoo, who’s insisted he always should get “last licks”. Nagamootoo also looked fit to be tied, since Trotman expropriated his role to call off the debate!! Does the Nassau Accord pip the Cummingsburg Accord?
And the dirt? Govt MP’s drinking and cavorting from Holy Thursday into Good Friday!!
…on bounty money
To incentivise SARA operatives, they get a 25% cut on state assets seized. So what are they gonna do with the 3 3/4 old computers if they win their case against the Enmore NDC?
