Dear Editor,
I refer to a letter by Mr Frederick Kissoon in Stabroek News of 22 October, 2009 entitled `These are questions I would like Mr Ramkarran to answer’. In that letter, Mr Kissoon insinuates, as he has been doing for about seven years now, that my brother and I received duty-free concessions unlawfully or irregularly after we completed our studies nine and seven years ago respectively.
Despite the fact that we were both students of Mr Kissoon at the University of Guyana and the fact that he knows us and knows where to find us, he has never thought it necessary to ask us anything before libelling us.
After completing first year law at the University of Guyana, my brother and I both attended the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados and then the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad for a total of four years.
As far as I am aware, the provisions governing duty-free concessions for remigrating students at the time we applied required the returning student to have been out of Guyana for thirty-six months and required that the vehicle being brought into Guyana to have come from the country where the returning student was coming from and to have been owned for six months previously.
These conditions were complied with by us and our application for duty-free concessions were accompanied by photocopies of our passports, statutory declarations and documents pertaining to the vehicles.
We were not the only returning students to have sought and obtained duty-free concessions and there were others who did not apply for any. I do not know whether the Government refused to grant duty-free concessions to persons who complied with all of the requisite conditions. If that had happened, I suppose it would have been a suitable matter for litigation. But I personally know of no former law student who sued the Government for refusing to grant him or her a duty- free concession after he or she had complied with all of the requisite conditions.
While there was nothing illegal or irregular about our applications for duty-free concessions and their subsequent grant, Mr Kissoon has been writing about this issue and libelling us on it for a nauseatingly long time. I have grown tired of his insinuations. The next time I see reference to it in any newspaper, I will, without further preamble, sue the author and the newspaper in which it appears for libel.
Yours faithfully,
Kamal Ramkarran
