…not a CoI into Trotman?
One of the distinguishing features of the Granger presidency has been his penchant for setting up Commission of Inquiries (CoIs). There have been more CoIs during his five years at the helm than during the entire 28 years of his mentor Burnham’s 28-year-old dictatorship. But then again, dictators don’t need CoIs – their word is final on any question under the sun!!
Not that Granger was really straying from his master’s legacy. In the case of his CoI into the sugar industry, he spent $51.8M (with the $1.8 going to Chairman Clive Thomas) and then threw their recommendations into the wastebasket. He did what he’d always said he’d do – being the process of destroying sugar by shuttering 4 estates and firing 7000 workers!! His word was final!!
In his first two years alone, he launched 11 CoIs and spent $175 million!! There was that CoI into an “assassination plot” on his life. This was just a gambit to dump the Police top brass and install his personal choices!! The only assassination demonstrated was CHARACTER assassination of the fired/demoted Police brass!! His 2016 CoI into the death of 17 prisoners at Camp St Prison recommended changes that weren’t implemented and led to the entire jail being gutted the following year!! Well, you get the idea on the love affair between Granger and CoIs, don’t you, Dear Reader??
So how come with all the controversy over Trotman’s role in the 2016 oil contract – with the fella’s grubby fingerprints all over the document! – Granger didn’t fall back on his favourite diversionary device?? After all, getting wind of the British NGO Global Witness’ independent inquiry into the “Case of the Purloined Oil Purse”, he hired a British legal firm to look into the matter! And the answer, my friends, isn’t blowin’ in the wind: in a CoI, there would’ve had to be witnesses called…and Granger wouldn’t have been able to control the narrative, with elections just months away!!
The fact of the matter, however, is there’s just too much evidence lying around that lead to some wilful negligence (at best) or gross culpability by Trotman. The fella seemed to have been doing some sorta Hansel and Gretel routine and dropping oil drops behind him all the way to Houston, Texas!! But could it be that by relying on advice from his menagerie of female concubines, they deliberately sabotaged him because of his “three-timing” them??!!
But back to Granger and the PNC’s bid for a second term. This GW report was the final nail in their coffin. Even the oil shipment next week can’t levitate them: oil prices are plummeting!!
They, literally and figuratively, just can’t win!!
… Berbice bauxite workers’ belligerence??
Old people say that “sometimes you can be your own worst enemy”. This bit of folk wisdom was graphically illustrated with the Berbice bauxite workers dealings with RUSAL. It all began when after the nationalised Aroraima and Bermine operations were privatised to RUSAL in 2006. Before that, there was an advertisement for the IMF-mandated sale but no takers.
Lincoln Lewis has always insisted that the workers (all 500 of them??) were prepared to take over the operations…but were ignored. Maybe with RUSAL indicating they’re prepared to close up shop, Lewis might again convince the workers to make a bid?? But in the meantime, why would the workers illegally block the Berbice River to stop RUSAL’s bauxite shipments – but at the same time stop the shipment of logs, and killing Berbice loggers? Lewis now wants “arbitration” but is cussing out both the Labour Department (“incompetent”) and RUSAL (Crimean invaders)!!
But the final act of madness was for the workers, clad in PNC uniforms – to chase out the PPP PM candidate and MP Edghill!!
Trade Unions don’t need allies?
…challenge non-resident rule??
Now, why would AG Basil Williams legally challenge the OLE – claiming it doesn’t adhere to a one-off 1991 law mandating residency for voting??
He’s establishing grounds for challenging the elections after they lose – a la 1997!!
