The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has condemned a move by the State to institute fraud charges against Registrar of the Deeds Registry, Azeena Baksh, who was placed before the courts on Tuesday on a charge of btaining money by false pretence.
Deeds Registrar Azeena Baksh
The State is alleging that between May 1, 2014 and January 31, 2017, the 33-year-old pregnant woman procured valuable securities in the total sum of $4.5 million while pretending she was an employee at the Deeds and Commercial Registries. She was placed on $250,000 bail after pleading not guilty to the charge.
However, the PPP in a statement on Tuesday evening said that there is an intensification of the “political witch-hunting” by the coalition Government with the latest victim being Baksh, “a young professional Guyanese and attorney-at-law, who decided not to venture into lucrative private practice but who choose instead to serve the State and work for a fixed salary.”
The Registrar’s father is former Minister Ali Baksh, and the party believes this is a contributing factor to the attacks on her since he is also a PPP leader.
According to the Opposition Party, this new practice by Government has reportedly not been going down well with law enforcers.
“Those who are being instructed to draft and institute these charges are either rebelling silently or have abandoned their professional training because the charges are beginning to move from frivolous to ludicrous,” the missive outlined.
The Party went on to outline that even the legal minds who have looked at the charges filed so far, have expressed the public view that the charges will never be supported by evidence and are all bound to fail. “More significantly, all these charges either relate to some contrived and concocted factual scenario fabricated simply to form the basis of the charge, as in the ‘law books’ case and Azeena Baksh’s case or, they concern the omission to perform some clerical function, which is not part of the functional responsibility of the person who is charged, for example the Guyana Rice Development Board of Directors,” the PPP noted.
On the other hand, the Opposition is alleging that every day the nation is witnessing the commission of major irregularities, grave illegalities and wanton criminality committed by Ministers of this Government, Permanent Secretaries and other senior functionaries, which are bleeding the Treasury of billions of dollars, yet these people are neither investigated nor charged.
Among these atrocities named by the PPP are: the 50 per cent increase in salaries; the D’Urban Park Development Project and the involvement of a company owned by a Minister and cronies of this Government; write-off of debts owed to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) by DDL and many other companies, and write-offs by the APNU/AFC dominated Georgetown Municipal Council to many companies for millions of dollars owed in rates and taxes.
The Opposition also mentioned Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan violating the statutes governing the local government system by appointing Mayors and Deputy Mayors; the controversial Parking Meter Project and no public tendering of the contract; and the drug bond contract between the Public Health Ministry of and the Linden Holding Company was not tendered and costing the Treasury $14 million per month to store condoms and lubricants.
The missive further highlighted the scholarships to Ministers costing the Treasury millions of dollars; rental of houses for Ministers costing the Treasury thousands of US dollars per month; billions of dollars of contracts being awarded to friends, cronies and financiers without any form of public bidding; abuse of the Contingency Fund by the Ministry of the Presidency for the purchase of luxury vehicles for the Prime Minister, and Public Health Minister Volda Lawerence violating procurement procedures in respect of the purchase of $2.2 billion in drugs.
The PPP said it hopes the nation, the diplomatic community and the world takes notice of the pace at which Guyana is sliding into lawlessness.
