By Adam Harris
MANY people take some things for granted. They see roads being built, or garbage being collected or transportation provided for their children to go to school and they take those things for granted.
Prior to May 2015 Georgetown was a dump. People called it the Garbage City without a measure of disgust. They simply took it for granted that the government would do nothing to alleviate the situation.
In fact, one government minister, Kellawan Lall, actually said that he would not mind if there is an outbreak of disease in the city.
And to add salt to the injury, Bharrat Jagdeo simply said that his party has never won Georgetown. The inference was that Georgetown would not attract any significant interest from his government.
He even would speak proudly of the days when it took more than 10 minutes to drive from State House to Public Buildings. He did not mind presiding over the collapse of the city; the majority of the people did not vote for his party.
Georgetown is a far cry from what it was in early 2015. Businessman Brian Tiwarie put his vast resources at the disposal of the nascent government to clean up the city. Within days the transformation was most remarkable.
Visitors from all parts of the world came and remarked on the cleanliness of the city. To a man they proclaimed, “Georgetown is so clean.”
There were other developments. David Granger removed the ban on employment in the Public Service, then set out to ensure a professional Public Service. That is still a work in progress.
He removed the conditions that allowed for the payment of bribes when people sought to obtain official documents. The long lines disappeared from the passport offices, as did the delay in obtaining documents.
People relaxed and took these things for granted. During the tenure of the PPP government bribery, theft and graft were normal things. Contractors took it for granted that they would pay 10 per cent of their contract to a minister or one of his surrogates. That too was taken for granted.
Corruption having become a way of life in the past and an accepted part of national life, saw the PPP planning and scheming five years ahead of the 2020 elections.
The loss in 2015 did not go down well. Jagdeo had often preached that the PPP could never lose an election again in Guyana. He knew what he was saying. I did not recognise the cold, hard fact that even if no supporter turned up to vote his party would win the elections.
Since Jagdeo did not take losing an election for granted, he began to put he machinery in place to topple the government. He used every resource, even Charrandass Persaud to initiate the no-confidence motion,
Then came the large-scale spending. Money was always there, having been siphoned from the public treasury in the past and squirrelled away like King Midas’s gold. So money, some US$34 Million was the amount agreed to by a lobbying firm in Washington.
Not only did this firm sell the People’s Progressive Party to the foreign diplomats, it provided the message that they all saw and believed. The lobbying firm secured their support for the People’s Progressive Party.
The PPP did not take the work of its lobbyist for granted. It walked the streets of its supporters offering everything under the moon and the stars once the party wins the elections.
On the other hand, the other people believed in decency and took it for granted that all the players would play by the rules.
The PPP had studied most of the known hangers-on in the society. It knew their weaknesses and fed it.
Jagdeo during a meeting at the National Cultural Centre so humbled a man who is now a vocal critic of the government, that this man never uttered a word in his own defence. Jagdeo bought this neophyte of a lawyer.
Then there was the self-proclaimed communicator. The PPP in days gone by, hounded this man. It had his friends shot on the seawall and a fellow party member escaped to Canada. But this man who was close to Forbes Burnham and an ardent supporter of Desmond Hoyte (perhaps by pretence) was acquired by Jagdeo.
Others who were brutally treated in the past became Jagdeo’s choir boys and girls. Perhaps it was the promise of grand things.
A long time ago I recognised that people may have all the money in the world and still feel inferior to ordinary people. Take that person and promise him a diplomatic posting and suddenly he becomes important. The man with his money desperately wants power. He wants to strut with international characters, even if he cannot speak the language.
Jagdeo is also known to offer every Tom, Dick and Harry Lall whom he controls, but whom he needs in these days of the elections, duty-free concessions on high-end vehicles. He knows that his sycophants need to look important so he has played to their weakness.
While all this is happening, others take their gains for granted. How else can one understand that in the PPP areas there have been all the shenanigans with the ballot boxes?
How is it that only in PPP areas that dead people came from the dead to vote? Money was paid to people to supply the names of their dead relatives to the party. It was the same with those who left the country, remained overseas but voted.
There have been massive irregularities in these elections but these were planned since 2015. People were recruited and briefed. They were paid from the party coffers and by GECOM.
Meanwhile, the paid party servants flooded the newspapers with letters. Former presidents, the former prime minister, former ministers and party loyalists all penned letters. Sadly, the incumbents were not as visible or strident.
The PPP was as hostile as it was promising to its newfound friends. I saw the scathing attacks against people and their children. Who attacks the children?
Joseph Harmon has been critical of Jagdeo and his party. He has long been talking about how corrupt and destructive Jagdeo and his cohorts could be.
Jagdeo attempted to paint him as the most corrupt person in Guyana. Then he extended his attack to Harmon’s children, contending that they became very rich form Ill-gotten gains. The children have said nothing.
Business mogul Brian Tiwarie, once a close friend of Jagdeo and the PPP, parted ways with both. Recently he and his children came in for attacks from the PPP. He was accused of being Joe Harmon’s friend as if that is a crime.
Then there was the attack against his children. One daughter who was home on her birthday, Tuesday, was said to have deserted her children earlier in the day to leave for Florida. Her husband, a naturalized Guyanese was reminded of his origins.
The die is cast. I wait to hear about decency. Reporters were forced to spare Sam Hinds’s son. They could not attack Donald Ramotar’s children because it was not nice. Jagdeo has none, but many of his followers are parents.
They will cry foul when the time comes.
Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_e-paper_06-07-2020