Social media is ablaze with the various acts of corruption by the hierarchy of the People’s Progressive Party. People are being made aware. They then share the posts or comment on them, but nothing else. The corruption is so glaring that it boggles the mind that it is being allowed to continue unchecked. And this mind-blowing corruption did not begin yesterday.
When Bharrat Jagdeo built his first home along the Ogle estate road people talked. Jagdeo never lived there. According to the conditions for the people who acquired those lands and built their homes, they could not dispose of the property for at least ten years.
Jagdeo sold that home within three years, ostensibly to a Trinidadian with whom he had close ties. The records showed that former President Bharrat Jagdeo sold his first home (located in Goedverwagting/Pradoville 1, East Coast Demerara) to Ernie Ross, a Trinidad-based marketing and public relations expert. The man was also Guyana’s Honorary Consul to Trinidad and Tobago. The transaction was completed in 2010 for US$600,000 (approximately $120 million). There was no fallout from this apparent breach of the regulations.
At that time people questioned the reported sale price since in the view of many, the house was not worth that much. Not long after, a tower owned by the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation and had stood on the Plaisance seawalls from time immemorial was taken down. The contention was that it was in the flight path of aircraft operating out of the Ogle airstrip. Planes had been flying in and out of that airstrip for decades.
It wasn’t long before people heard that the land on which that tower stood was being sold to people specially picked by Jagdeo. One of them was Priya Manickchand. Another was Rear Admiral Gary Best. The cost of this prime property was $5 million for two plots. At the time the cost of a middle-income house lot in some other parts of Guyana was $500,000. The true nature of the Pradoville Two sale came to light when the Rear Admiral announced his relationship with the People’s National Congress Reform. Jagdeo was not amused. He said as much.
The structure that Jagdeo put up on that site was something to behold. Again, people began to talk. Questions were asked. When asked whether Jagdeo could have erected such a structure from his earnings over his lifetime, the late head of the Income Tax Department now the Guyana Revenue Authority, Khurshid Sattaur, said that all one had to do was to follow the money. There were attempts at prosecution. Former President David Granger with his decency did not approve of Jagdeo being detained for questioning.
The Special Organised Crime Unit that had mounted the investigation also moved to detain the late Dr Roger Luncheon who also owned property at the new location. The probe was discontinued and the beneficiaries of Pradoville Two walked away happily. People merely talked.
The situation could have been worse. Jagdeo had planned to pass a roadway through the Plaisance playground to his property. Aubrey Norton led the people of Plaisance to protest this move thus averting the destruction of their playground. But the community could hold no public function on that ground if there was loud music. Again, people merely talked.
There were other acts of corruption. People acquired large swaths of state land for precious little. One such transaction saw Eddie Boyer buying 104 acres of prime land at Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara. These were later parceled off and sold as house lots, four of which netted the purchase price. The profit margin was huge for the entrepreneur.
Such was the corruption in Guyana that Speaker of the National Assembly Manzoor Nadir banned the word from the lexicon of the Parliament. And the corruption continues. There is now a focus on the farm Irfaan Ali has on 150 acres of land. He was the Minister of Housing when he established a chicken farm on that land. Indeed, it was smaller then said to be 20 acres on a lease acquired during Jagdeo’s tenure as president.
Irfaan Ali’s driver at the time was entrusted with the management of the farm. He continued to be paid by the Housing Ministry. He was paid travel allowances for driving from his home to the farm. In short, the Housing ministry paid him to work on Irfaan’s farm. Now the farm has been expanded. It is 150 acres. There are black belly sheep and a host of other animals to the extent that Irfaan has been called on to explain or to account for his investment.
In response to Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed who questioned the establishment of such a large farm and the source of funding, President Irfaan Ali said that the size of the farm was exaggerated—that it was not even a half of the 150 acres. Enterprising people resorted to technology. They have found that the farm is larger than the 150 acres.
But even before this farm, there were queries about Ali’s primary home at Leonora, West Coast Demerara. His salary could not have afforded him such a property. Indeed, he was helped by the peppercorn he paid for what was once a large property operated by Guyana Sugar Corporation.
There was the expose of Susan Rodrigues’s meteoric financial rise. There have been other exposes, some involving the children of current Works Minister Juan Edghill. The list is long. It is not true to say that nothing was done to curb corruption. Charges were laid. Ashni Singh who defied Parliament to spend money was charged. So too was Winston Brassington.
The government changed and the Director of Public Prosecutions used her power to nolle prosequi all charges. That merely means that she cancelled the charges. All the suspects were free to walk. But the very DPP had recommended the charges in the first place.
Information about corruption is out in full view. People are talking. Some are laughing at the situation in the hope that the people involved would feel embarrassed. Charmaine Blackman sang a song “Gie dem more fuh talk.” That is what is happening. The people involved are simply saying that since people like to talk, we gun gie dem more fuh talk.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me is an adage.
