– lies, lies and more lies
Caught with the scandal of $605 million purchase from a hand-picked company, Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence now denied she approved the purchase. She blames the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for feeding her a pack of lies. She has absolute responsibility and she knew that the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) was seeking to award a contract to ANSA McAL through a sole-sourced procedure. Lawrence was presented with a list of medicines which were clearly and highly overpriced and the list was on an invoice from ANSA McAL. Minister Lawrence quite clearly is spinning the facts when she stated that she did not approve the sole-sourcing from ANSA McAL. But spinning the facts does not change a lie to a truth. C-A-T does not spell DOG, no matter how much you spin it.
Minister Lawrence’s denial that she ever approved the GPHC’s $605 million sole-sourced, over-priced procurement of medicines is the very epitome of throwing your staff under the bus. Lawrence admitted she approved the fast-tracking of the purchase, but denied approving sole-sourcing from ANSA McAL. According to her, she instructed them to use the established procedure to obtain emergency supplies. But the request to the Public Health Ministry for an approval to procure a list of medicines, with its proposed prices from ANSA McAL was clearly a sole-sourced request. What kind of procedure did she think she approved?
Similarly, after a number of worrying and egregious emails from Attorney General Basil Williams were exposed, he denied that the emails were from him. He claimed it is someone else’s email. These emails are vivid exposure of the wicked strategy that the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) used before the 2015 elections and since, and which they plan to use for the 2020 elections. In the strategy of propagandising, they use lies to paint the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and its leaders as racists, thieves and fraudsters. The emails proposed to use the media and other friendly organisations as part of the APNU/AFC machinery to continue and expand the propagandising. Clearly, the intention is to deflect their failures, incompetence and corruption and reflect them on Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP. The EMAIL denial is clearly a lie. But Minister Williams has been the KING of LIES.
The list of lies from APNU/AFC is dreadfully long. The Prime Minister recently claimed they never promised anyone $9000 per bag of paddy and they never promised sugar workers 20 per cent pay increase, although tens of thousands of sugar workers and rice farmers have vouched they heard him and other APNU/AFC spokesperson making those promises. There are also tens of thousands of people who heard them say these things at public meetings and on TV, as there are tens of thousands who are looking at YouTube recordings on Facebook of some of their speeches. Remember when they said the Treasury was bankrupt because of the PPP and then they turned around and gave themselves a 100 per cent pay increase? In just two years, there are dozens of lies from APNU/AFC. If the LIAR CAP fits, then these Ministers must wear it.
Their election campaign in 2014/2015 was based almost entirely on lies. They lied when they promised no sugar estate will be closed. They lied when they said Jagdeo and Ramotar were the highest paid Heads of State in the world. They lied when they said they would reduce the salaries and benefits, including the pensions of the President and the Ministers. In fact, they increased their salaries, benefits and pensions. They lied when they said there would be no floods under them.
As with their election campaign, now in Government, APNU/AFC’s blueprint for governance has been to lie to the Guyanese people. They have lied, misrepresented the facts and misinformed people. It is why I called this Government the KERFUFFLING government. They use a hefty portion of lies with very generous sprinklings of misrepresentation and misinformation to kerfuffle (confuse) people. This has been their modus operandi in Opposition and now in Government. They have transformed good governance to SPIN.
Facts and the truth are not partisan. They are the bedrock of our democracy. A democratic government is transparent, accountable and up-front and truthful with the citizens. Governments make mistakes, everywhere and throughout history. If you make a mistake, own it and move quickly to fix it. Citizens in any country will be more likely to accept mea culpa and are likely to be more forgiving. But when you lie and expect people to live with your lies, it is the hallmark of a dictatorship.
