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Former Prime Minister and present Ambassador Sam Hinds, like Bharrat Jagdeo, has no moral authority to speak about discrimination or lecture anybody about honesty and good governance. His role in the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has always been that of a person devoid of independent and honest thoughts, and someone who grins even when abused or insulted by his masters.
And whereas he demonstrates content with a subservient role, be it in the legislature or executive, some of us will hold him accountable for his stewardship and statements as a public official because he is being paid by the public purse.
Hinds needs to revisit his thoughts for these are not only cold but also inhumane which leaves me with no choice but to hold him accountable for misleading. Let me also put him on notice that as long as he continues his public misrepresentation, I shall be a thorn in all parts of his body.
Here he goes again, in action akin to a compliant house slave, only too willing to do the master’s bidding just to stay around the Great House and catch the crumbs from the table, even running the risk of consuming poisonous substances such as kerosene oil. The statements (Village Voice on 12 Feb, 2023 and Kaieteur News, 13 Feb, 2023) to which Hinds was instructed to respond were directed to Bharrat Jagdeo and his stewardship as President. Jagdeo has since cowered under the table, first sending out Seepaul Narine (who I shall deal with later), then Minister Oneidge Walrond.
Sam must be told I stand by my statements that Jagdeo is a political usurper and contemptuous of the African race even when the Guyana Constitution protects the rights of the group or any in the group stands to benefit. One such instance is Mark Phillips, who by virtue of his position as Prime Minister is constitutionally the First Vice President and Head of Government Business in the National Assembly, yet he is not allowed to so function. Hinds also suffered the same abuse as Prime Minister under Cheddie Jagan, Janet Jagan, Bharrat Jagdeo, and Donald Ramotar.
Furthermore, Jagdeo had two constitutional terms as president, presiding over the most brutal, bloody and corrupt government in post independent Guyana. As countless have asserted, both government and non-government supporters, President Irfaan Ali is the pawn of the evil one who runs the government and has Ali running around the place like a headless chicken.
Hinds does not come to the discussion on bauxite with integrity. He is merely only too willing to please lest he be recalled from his cushy life in Washington by the evil one. In November 1992 Sam was identified by the PPP, as the utensil, to inform the bauxite unions that production will be cut by 45 per cent and there will be loss of jobs. When the workers were so advised by the unions Hinds publicly denied the conversation occurred but by March 1993, the government and LINMINE engaged the unions to discuss termination benefits for thousands of workers.
His claim that bauxite has difficulty but ignored a similar situation was said about sugar is deceptive and an attempt to justify the inequitable and discriminatory treatment meted out to bauxite workers by the PPP. Under the People’s National Congress (PNC) government sugar and bauxite were treated similarly.
President Desmond Hoyte’s Structural Adjustment Programme saw contract management in both industries. MINPROC in bauxite and Booker Tate in the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo). Both bauxite and sugar were being prepared for privatisation. However, when the PPP assumed office in October 1992 GuySuCo was taken off the privatisation list as the PPP moved with haste to privatise bauxite and break up the workers’ Pension Plan which was worth in excess of $2.5 Billion, representing the single largest pool of money owned by African workers. And whereas thousands of bauxite workers were laid off under Cheddie Jagan and Jagdeo governments, the PPP injected billions of dollars to keep GuySuCo going, and the workers employed.
More than 30 years later, as the beleaguered GuySuCo continues to suckle at the national coffers, the PPP excuses the heavy spending as important to protecting the village economy of sugar workers. No similar consideration has ever been given to the village economy of bauxite workers in Linden, Kwakwani, Everton, New Amsterdam and other places. In fact, bauxite was Jagdeo’s first experiment with economic genocide in the African community that has since taken on different forms and is being expanded in other areas of Africans’ economic life in effort to improverish, destroy and bring the race to its knees.
Let Hinds, and he who hides behind him, come and tell the nation the information provided here is wrong. Furthermore, let them not only state so, because they are shameless enough to do so, but provide the evidence Jagdeo has not waged economic genocide in the African community, starting with bauxite workers. Let them also provide evidence Jagdeo is not a political squatter and deserving of the same treatment the government inflicted on the residents of Caneview/Mocha.
Hinds’ admittance the Pension Plan was broken up is the only truth in all the things he has said about bauxite. Shame on him for his participation in the destruction of the pension of ordinary workers, as he lives off the hog on a monthly pension that could pay the salary of more than 20 public servants. Samuel Archibald Hinds is just as heartless and ruthless as the evil one who hides behind him.
