“Every single person in Guyana lives off of or benefits from workers’ money. Bharrat Jagdeo and his cabal are no different. Workers also contribute to trade unions for representation. The difference with Jagdeo is that he is not content to merely enjoy those sum that are legally ascribed to his public service to this nation, who over the tenure of his office has sought to misuse not only workers’ money pays as taxation but the country’s wealth which belongs to every citizen, as his personal bank account for his cabal.”
So said Lincoln Lewis, General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress, responding to Vice President (VP) Bharrat
Jagdeo’s statement that he, Lewis, lives off of the workers’ money. Jagdeo, yesterday, at his weekly press conference made the assertion.
Village Voice News reached out to the veteran trade unionist who did not mince words. Lewis said he is proud of every worker who is legally living off taxpayers’ money, but Jagdeo and this government ought to be ashamed for the scandalous misuse, the depth and breadth of corruption that characterised his administration (1999-2011) and this current government that must be held accountable for.
During the Jagdeo administration Transparency International (TI) ranked Guyana the most corrupt country in the English-speaking Caribbean. There was some improvement during the David Granger/Moses Nagamoottoo government but corruption in Guyana is on the uptick in Irfaan Ali administration, as reported in the 2023 TI report.
Going further in addressing the VP, the trade unionist said the nation must ask how many People Progressive Party (PPP) politicians and their cronies can move from rags to mega riches overnight. How the corrupt cannot be prosecuted and only the poor of this country, and those struggling for a living wage can face prosecution and jail, Lewis queried.
Lewis said Jagdeo is not just content to live off of taxpayers’ money but he has wiggled his way into the vice president’s position so that he can continue to leach the taxpayers. Turing attention to the PPP condemnation of salary raise of the president and ministers during the A Partnership of National Unity (APNU+AFC) government, Lewis flayed what he called the PPP double standard and greed. According to the trade unionist “when the PPP regime got into office they did not take a pay cut but have for the last three years increased their remuneration package as the ordinary workers and pensioners continue to catch hell.”
According to Lewis “the PPP leaders and cronies are all fat cats feasting off the fat of the land, accumulating wealth on the back of the workers’ taxes and nation’s coffers.” Jagdeo’s level of greed no knows no limit and surpassed only by his lust for power, the trade unionist contended.
Touching on Jagdeo’s pension, the general secretary advised as president Jagdeo ensured the law was made to tie his pension to 7/8 of the incumbent president’s salary. “He did what no other before him sought to do all because of his greed.”
Three Thursdays ago Jagdeo stated if Lewis goes to heaven things will go missing. Lewis fired back in the Sunday’s column “Eye on Guyana with Lincoln Lewis” stating that it was Jagdeo who will go missing from heaven given the inhumane and corrupt leadership as President of Guyana and the “high tech domestic violence” he inflicted on his wife.
