By GHK Lall-President Ali has a problem. Credibility. He has declared war (his version) on contractors (mainly party people), public officers (more PPP) and ministers (nothing but PPP). I ponder if Excellency Ali’s war is a real war or a phony war. I weigh whether his war is a hot air war or a hot war that he wages against contractors, public servants, and ministers. Now, I am going to surprise everybody, particularly PPP fanatics: I commend the president. That is, he is the real McCoy, and not some half-cooked Big Mac suddenly running amok. I believe the president means business with scheming contractors, suspect public servants, and pathetic ministers.
Now I have laid on the line where I stand. President Ali, in turn, should walk his own line. Some bodies rolled in a carpet, kicked from their high government offices. Start with ministers, sir. Continue with public servants. When he does so, I can live with what Excellency Ali. Conditionally. Regrettably, I refuse to die for him. He must become a changed man, a radically different leader, first. I could reconsider then.
Contractors are late. The whole damn country is late, Mr. Excellency. Sorry, I subtract the swear word in a bow to the president’s high office. Permanent Secretaries and minister have been sloppy. Sickly, soggy, a sorry lot they are. For sure, proven party people must be rewarded, but not every impersonator with a red history. Errant contractors have their records: a long concern, a known crisis. But they don’t function in isolation.
PSs, ministers, engineers, state agencies know their lines (and wants), have their roles that they play well. Now, I have some humble recommendations for the president. He acts on them, he proves how much he is against sloth and sleaze, and that unsaid “c” word which has to do with cash. By my estimation, Excellency Ali would earn a tanker of trust. He could use that much, such is the level of disbelief in his pronouncements.
My first recommendation is to get rid of the National Tender and Procurement Administration Board (NPTAB). The infernal name alone is like a yoke around the heads of the people in that sluggish, slack state agency. Most of them there have their heads in the wrong place, doing the wrong kind of contract business. The problem starts there. Or at Congress. When NPTAB knows that it did right with contract awards, then it doesn’t have to stonewall or sidestep delivery of documents, play dumb, pretend at purity. Like permanent secretaries and ministers, there is appreciation that most NPTAB members are trusted PPP agents.
So, the president is caught between a cobra and a crocodile. Purge contract slackers and sickos and he could be flushed down into the toilet. Do nothing and he gets swallowed up in a sea of public derision, disbelief. To luxuriate in some American nostalgia, Tuesday morning quarterbacking by Excellency Ali will render him looking on the shadowy side, if actions do not follow his words delivered so sharply, so intensely. Guyanese need a true leader not an actor.
Second, end this contractor masquerade involving time, money, and people. Disband the Public Procurement Commission. It is useless. Some of its members should be jailed for misrepresentation, for issuing their own pardons for political contractors who are malefactors in disguise. Since the PPC doesn’t rattle cages; cage it. Early morning presidential tirades are nothing, if that’s the end of the matter(s). Excellency Ali is Guyana’s president, not the head of some political mafia. John Kennedy had his Irish Mafia, Jimmy Carter his Georgia Mafia. Please Mr. President: cut the PPP Mafia down to size. It is either this, or the president is into pantomime, a phantom, not a president.
Whether President Ali agrees or not, his beloved PPP is the most corrupt national entity, more corrupt under his watch. The schemers and conspirators are numerous, overwhelming honest party folks. They are high up in the president’s government. President Ali, therefore, is back to that place I am pointing, nudging, him. PPP collaborators must be neutralized, if Dr. Ali is to deliver on his dawn diatribe. I could send him a list of public servants and ministers, who I wouldn’t trust to bathe a cat.
They would steal the bucket, soap, water, and cat. Then lie upon the poor cat. Is this not what has happened with cost overruns, calendar overruns, ministerial mouths overrunning, and all the while overrunning the patient good faith of honest Guyanese? Excellency Ali can be judge and jury; then put on his black executioner’s hat. Don’t come after me for sharing truths. Go after PPP scoundrels, who crucify citizens by cheating them, then cursing objectors. Respectfully, Excellency Ali: the damnations of last Tuesday’s dawn must be delivered. Otherwise, he presided over a predawn soap opera.
