IDPADA-G subvention: let this matter go to mediation

By GHK Lall

What is the problem with IDPADA-G?  Why the callous holdup of its funds?  Why the premediated hamstringing of its leadership, the sabotaging of its work in African Guyanese communities?  The last question, if there is ever such a thing anymore in Guyana, is: why this meanness, this vindictiveness, this war on an entity dedicated to serving the interests of Black people in this country?

The group and the people that are in the best place to furnish answers to those questions include the PPP Government, the Vice President, and likely the Hon Attorney General, Mr. Anil Nandlall, MP, SC.  I heard concerns about misuse of funds, hard claims of outright fraud involving taxpayers’ money received through subventions.  There is a single follow through left when such scorching allegations are put in the public domain, heaped on the head of anyone.  Because well-known public figures are fingered, at least one, comb through the completed audit report(s) handed over, interrogate other valid intelligence (if such is in hand, and go from there.  The prime objectives must be justice for taxpayers, through the levying of charges, and hauling those that should be before the bar of justice.  Due process and day in court are nonnegotiable.  Yet none of that has occurred.

I think that it has been too long, and by an unacceptable stretch, since allegations were made, and the subvention was halted.  Other than a lawsuit filed by one accused of fraud, there has been nothing, but the usual frenzy of sycophantic ecstasies in the media of theft of funds, and other abuses.  Par for the course, and the now characteristic mindlessness of a baying mob kept at the ready, and unleashed for such purposes.  This is how men and women prove their worth, justify their existence.  I urge the PPP Government to get on with it, viz., get the alleged offenders out of the way, via the court system in a fair hearing, and let some semblance of restoration and stability ensue within the realms of IDPADA-G.

It is one thing, a terrible one, to make loud, sharp, and piecing allegations, and then slink back in cowardly retreat behind some Iron Curtain of silence.  Much damage has been done to people.  No matter how disliked, no matter how much of an obstacle they may have proven to be at a pivotal and most sensitive of national institutions, they are still entitled to courtesy, civility, and cleanliness of the highest order.  if they have done wrong, and the sternest convictions are of those, then get going, get down, and get it over with, in the roughest fashion that can be imagined, that pleases.  If it has to be the chain gang, then so be it.  By my way of reckoning things, if one can be so low as to misappropriate (cheat) and mangle trust placed, and mislead (as all alleged) one’s own feeble and expectant people, then no punishment is too severe.  But none of that has been forthcoming, with nothing pointing in any such direction.

From all indications, however, the PPP Government and its leading lights have all receded into the numbness of rolling thunderous silence, and the skulking nursing of their self-inflicted bruises and scars. They have left it to the Hon. Attorney General to pick up the pieces in the best way possible, any way that he can.  He got the call to do the dirty job, the heavy lifting.  He was written to by IDPADA-G, all of four lines, according to him, but to which he has not fully addressed his mind; since he possesses an agile mind, it should not be too long for him to arrive at some place, other than where he is presently.

For its part, the word and posture from IDPADA-G principal(s) is that dialogue is the best course ahead.  I agree since diatribes have tainted and saturated local discourse, with the socially debilitating all that we have for our troubles.  We have gotten extremely good at diatribes which feed more dissensions, which is why those are all that we live for, live with, and make a living from somehow.

With the overture of dialogue first extended by IDPADA-G, it is most encouraging to read the Attorney General speak of the (his) PPP Government’s willingness to consider mediation.  I think it is a significant reciprocal step; but one which also confirms that both the Government and those leading the charge against IDPADA-G had nothing to go on in the first place, when likely baseless allegations were hurled.  Now, with an eye on all the bad blood existing, the focus should be on how to get closer and quickly to the mediation process.  This is what should characterize the attitudes and actions of the Attorney general.  I would hope that there is no unending back and forth on the choice of a mutually acceptable meditator.  It is time that this sordid matter be put to bed, and in a manner that does justice to process and all those involved on both the PPP Government’s side, and especially those attached to IDPADA-G.  The interests of fairness and justice must prevail.

In terms of what the man from IDPADA-G has in mind as next steps with his lawsuit, I would humbly urge that when the matter of subvention is fully and satisfactorily resolved that he considers dropping it at once.  Nothing could be more reflective of clean motives, of a degree of magnanimity that is so largely lacking in this country.  To retaliate to verbal vileness with legal violence simply extends the culture of national malevolence that is so deep-rooted in today’s Guyana.  Somewhere, sometime, somehow, and in some bedraggled state, we have to reach for high ground.  Failure to do so on our part, then leads to the only option left for us.  That is, to bury one another in the lowest, shallowest ground found.  I exhort focusing on the other way, reaching for there.