Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo on Wednesday said the signals the government is sending to investors are not good, while reiterating the assertion that the administration does not have a strategy for development.
He was speaking at a public forum that was organised by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) at the Sleep-In Hotel on Brickdam on Wednesday.
The forum dealt with the topics Militarizing of the State, Discrimination, Victimization, Witch-Hunting and Intimidation and panelists included Jagdeo and former president Donald Ramotar, who appeared together for the first time after the PPP/C left office.
Other panelists included General Secretary of the PPP Clement Rohee, executive members Dr. Roger Luncheon and attorney Anil Nandlall, and member of the Civil Society Ramon Gaskin.
Jagdeo noted that President David Granger had promised at GuyExpo to review the concessions to foreign investors to ensure local businesses have an even playing field and he said investors are not too confident and prefer to wait until the review is completed.
He spoke out against the number of taxes that have been increased as well as the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) and the State Asset Recovery Unit (SARU), which he said would discourage investors.
Gaskin called SARU another “parallel institution.” He noted that a “military man,” who had interviewed him for a job, did not know under what law SARU was functioning. He jokingly said that instead, he ended up interviewing the man, who could not provide him with an answer, so he [Gaskin] “won the interview but lost the job.”
Meanwhile, in his presentation, Nandlall said that the coalition government over the last year has embarked upon a deliberate and centrally orchestrated course of action to persecute and which-hunt ministers and officials of the former PPP/C administration in order to prove their widespread public allegations of corruption.
“Thus far, apparently, they have been unable to penetrate the cloak of independence which the aforesaid institutions enjoy. In consequence, we are witnessing a clear and consistent strategy to avoid the engagement of these institutions as they continue to pursue their vindictive agenda,” Nandlall said.
“Not satisfied with the Auditor General’s Reports over the last several years, the regime, in violation of the Constitution and the Audit Act, simply shoved aside the Audit Office, handpicked over a dozen auditors—most of them being their allies and cronies—and are paying them hundreds of millions of dollars to do forensic audits,” he added.
He said the audits were unable to unearth any evidence, while dozens of files have been sent to the Guyana Police Force and to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) with firm instructions to investigate and charge.
He said the responses from the two entities, however, were not favourable and the government has resorted to using the powers of SARU and SOCU. Recently, he said, there has been an expressed intention to establish a “Special Prosecutors’ Office.”
An issue was raised about the Speaker of the House being biased against the opposition MPs and Nandlall said they have had many interventions to resist the Speaker’s admonitions and the way in which he treats them.
He said the Speaker intervenes many times to stop the opposition MPs from speaking. He said they are “in the process of documenting the instances and at some point we would produce a chronology of his rulings and interventions and would forward it to agencies.”
