Clearly in retaliation to the government’s – by way of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) – charging in their absence former minister of finance and chairperson of NICIL Ashni Singh and former NICIL head Winston Brassington with misconduct in public office for selling government lands without proper valuation or under the assessed value, last week two opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) MPs, Juan Edghill and Vickram Bharrat, brought private prosecutions against ministers Volda Lawrence and George Norton for misconduct in public office.
Respectively, they are said to have instructed the administrator of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation to sole-source a substantial amount of drugs and rented a house that was unsuitable as a pharmaceutical bond at a rent way above its market value. On Monday, another private prosecution was brought by former attorney general Anil Nandlall against three other ministers: Winston Jordan and David Patterson for misconduct in public office in relation to the D’Urban Park project and Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine for alleged misconduct and the abuse of public trust for receiving, while being a government minister, $906 million in his capacity as a director of the company that began construction on the project.
Both the government and the opposition have called on the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to withdraw the charges, which they claimed are politically motivated. So far she has done so in the first two cases involving government ministers stating that ‘These charges concern a grave issue under the criminal law in relation to two serving Ministers. In the interest of good governance in the State of Guyana such allegations ought first to have been reported to the Guyana Police Force for an investigation to be launched and the advice of the DPP sought.’ In other words, far from the charges having been totally dismissed, until they are finally investigated and concluded, they are likely to be a source of persistent concern for those involved and propaganda material for the PPP/C.
