Dear Editor,
I am appalled at Ralph Ramkarran’s blatant attempt to influence court proceedings through his column “Constitutional Requirements and National Development” in Stabroek News (February 23, 2025). His convenient use of Chapter II’s Principles and Bases of the Constitution as a fig leaf to justify unlimited government access to the Natural Resource Fund is particularly disturbing.
Here, we have a Senior Counsel arguing that because the Constitution promotes recreation and culture, even Mashramani celebrations qualify as national development priorities for fund withdrawals. By this tortured logic, since the Constitution addresses general economic development, virtually any government expenditure—including routine salary payments—becomes a “national development priority.” This transparent attempt to render the Natural Resource Fund Act’s restrictions meaningless comes, not coincidentally, just days after a court challenge was filed.
But this is just the latest example of Ramkarran’s remarkable transformation from occasional critic to reliable government apologist. His legal analyses, increasingly draped in constitutional references, have become predictable exercises in justifying whatever the government desires.
What drives a Senior Counsel to twist fundamental constitutional principles into a blank check for government spending? The people of Guyana deserve better than such shameless opportunism masquerading as a constitutional scholarship. When a Senior Counsel sacrifices intellectual honesty for political expedience, he undermines public discourse and the constitutional principles he claims to defend.
Yours truly,
Pt.Ubraj Narine, JP, COA
Former Staff Sgt.(GDF), Mayor City of Georgetown
