…in Agri
It’s clear there isn’t only a disjunct between the AFC and APNU about the activities of Government and governance, but also one between supporters of the AFC and their top leaders, Nagamootoo and Ramjattan. The first disjunct was revealed early in the day when the AFC went to collect their 40% appointments after the elections, for bringing in their 11% from Berbice.
While they thought they were involved in politics, they learn a thing or two about economics – specifically what all businessmen know as “stock dilution”. To wit – when those with the real power in a corporation want to seize control of the company, they simply create massive amounts of new stock and dole it out to those they control. This ploy leaves the old stockholders in an ineffectual “minority position”. So what APNU did was increase the number of ministries by 50% – most of them being “Junior Ministers” – who (surprise!! surprise!!) mostly were AFC!
Anyhow, the disjunct between the AFC leaders and their supporters not surprisingly came out of their dissatisfaction with the neutering of the former without them even uttering a whimper. Some said they’d been anaesthetised by the 50% salary increase and the perks of duty-free and housing allowances! One of the disaffected supporters is Sase Singh who’d written reams of missives to the press pushing the AFC over the past few years – as the sidekick of one Asquith Rose.
While Rose has quit in disgust, Singh’s been given a column in the Muckraker from which –- in addition to his letters – he expresses his angst and frustration on the AFC’s leadership “failures”. In the latest letter, he returned to a favourite theme – bashing Min of Agri Holder for not doing enough to push his moribund sector.
But your Eyewitness feels Singh should’ve been more specific. Let’s take for instance, rice, which is the largest employer in Guyana and not to mention brings in valuable foreign currency. Which stays in the country and circulates – unlike, say, the earnings of the mega expatriate gold mining companies. So shouldn’t Singh have mentioned the state of the Mexican paddy contract that Prime Minister/First Vice President Moses Nagamootoo assured us he’d clinched on a trip to that country?
And also why – if Jamaica can now negotiate to pay off its PetroCaribe oil debt to Venezuela with “food” – can’t the AFC big wigs push their colleagues in Government to reopen the old rice-for-oil deal we had? Or why can’t Singh ask Nagamootoo why –- after Wales’ closure – he’s not criticising the “diversification” away from sugar now, when he so trenchantly criticised it when he was PPP?
Ahhh…is Singh’s mouth also muzzled?
…in public security
Concerns have been raised about our Commissioner of Police (COP) reporting to “two masters” since the mandate of the old “Ministry of Home Affairs” has been split into a Ministry of Public Security” headed by Khemraj Ramjattan and a Ministry of Citizenship – headed by past COP Winston Felix. Ramjattan admitted he couldn’t pronounce on Immigration matters since that had been hived off to Felix. But Felix insisted that in matters that may need Police interventions (live rounding up illegals) he does not “instruct” the COP but merely “informs” him! What was that they said about a distinction in search of a difference??!!
But the irony was that Felix told – of all people – Teixeira, not to worry, he wouldn’t “interfere: “I stop where I know I need to stop.”
Wasn’t this the COP Bannuh who told the Chairman of the PNC he’d “headed off” the Minister of Home Affairs from hot pursuit of the Agricola Massacre? And the Minister was Teixeira?
…of Trump
French President Francois Hollande once again rapped Trump for his stance on so many issues –- including Muslim immigration.
What a hypocrite! At least Donald Trump’s honest on race and straightening out all those non-whites living in denial.
