Dear Editor,
In a letter captioned, “The PPP rule has degenerated into forms that are worse than under Burnham” (08.03.23). I listed four formations of a pathological nature the emergence of which we did not see under Burnham. One of these is the incestuous penetration of the state sector by family members of the core of the PNC leadership and the extended PNC hierarchy. Mr Burnham did not tolerate and encourage the offspring and family members of the PNC’s inner leadership and its wider elite cadres to possess any lucrative jobs they wanted in the private sector. Obviously there were such cases but it was not a policy of the PNC as it is today in the PPP.
I lived under the Burnham regime and saw that phenomenon for myself. The children, spouses and siblings of the PNC hierarchy occupied ordinary occupations. They would have been scared to even approach Burnham to tell him that they wanted to head this or that state institution.
The further point I made in that letter was that the PPP and its related organs are using the state sector for aggrandisement. The process goes on. Even after the publication of my letter of March 23, there have been appointments to prestigious positions, the latest being the brother of a top PPP leader to be deputy head of a state institution. There are three immoral dimensions to this incestuousness. One is that these family members are either not qualified or are qualified but have just graduated meaning they have no experience in the particular field in which they operate. As a spin off from this, it means that they have bypassed others in the public sector. The third aspect is that they are given Master scholarships to high-ranking universities in the US (not in Cuba, of course)
The second dimension is that in 99 percent of these public sector jobs, the payments are made in US dollars from international lending agencies. I know one case in which one of these children came back from an Asian country with a Masters, immediately got a job with the civil service and was taken out of the scales and given a special contract in which he is receiving a salary ten times more than what that civil service position carries on the normal scale
This perversity is an abuse of state resources that is unheard of in the world today. It is certainly, totally absent in the United States, a country that Mrs. Janet Jagan condemns every week in her weekly Mirror column. It is certainly not present in Cuba. Castro never practised that kind of incestuousness. This is definitely a pathological descent that is extremely offensive. I am amazed that the PNC, AFC and GAP have not asked a parliamentary question as yet. Donald Ramotar once replied to me asking the question, aren’t the children of PPP leaders entitled to work in Guyana. Of course, Mr Ramotar is being silly. No sane person would be so stupid as to say otherwise. He obfuscated the unhealthy dimensions of the employment process. I replied and requested that he outline for the Guyanese people, the jobs and where they are located that children of the PPP kings and queens have at the moment. Mr Ramotar has since disappeared.
There may be a fourth bizarre manifestation to this vulgar political development. Even the girlfriends of the favoured offspring may be getting privileged positions in the public sector. I know of one such case. This is something I have been researching on and off. I now come to the analytical foundation of this degeneracy.
I believe what we are seeing is a fantastic unfolding of presidential realpolitik. Mr Jagdeo is not the leader of the PPP and as such he has to secure party backing for his policies. What Mr Jagdeo has done is to ensure that the members of the central committee and the executive committee are happy with what they requested. When they look around, they cannot be disgruntled at the attitude of President Jagdeo. In turn, Mr Jagdeo has cemented his power base in the PPP.
At the moment, there is a fiction going around that there is a communist type schism inside the PPP – party versus president. That needs discussion. It is not what it appears. Mr Jagdeo can win any vote he wants tomorrow on any motion at any forum of the PPP including the forthcoming congress. His realpolitik game has paid off. He has a school of loyal PPP leaders attached to him because he has satisfied their non-political demands. I have argued that if Mr Corbin can accept a third term for Mr Jagdeo, the PPP leadership will give Jagdeo the two/thirds in Parliament that he needs. Of course, this is something Mr Ralph Ramkarran knows he has to confront if he is going to contest the slot for the party in 2011.
Finally, on an unrelated development, one hopes we are not going to end up with a Nirmal Rekha situation with the present investigation into the alleged GRA bribe scandal. Four persons were investigated including Mr Rekha for fraud in the distribution of duty free letters. Three were charged but not Mr Rekha. In fairness to Mr Rekha, the police did not find incriminating evidence. But the GRA found that he had signed more than fifty bogus letters in which the country lost dozens of millions. He may not have done anything illegal. What about the moral rightness of retaining a man, in the same position, after he was found to have signed over fifty (not five or fifteen) bogus concession documents? Will we see one figure being singled out and will he become the fall guy?
I close by absolutely rejecting the four months ban on Channel 6. We are drowning in the vortex of an elected dictatorship.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
