Going by the government’s position that all transactions conducted by the state after the no-confidence (NCV) are illegal, it also follows that the Members of Parliament (MP) should not have been paid after the NCV and were receiving salaries illegally. The government, who was then the opposition, should now be asked to return all MPs salaries to the Treasury. This is following the argument that after the NCV, the government was not supposed to be transacting any business.
Those who have surrendered their lands to the National Industrial & Commercial Investments Ltd (NICIL) may be doing so under private coercion, duress and fear of the consequences of the threats being made by the government. Those who have not returned theirs are within their right not to do so. Barking threats about illegality does not make it so. It is bloviating.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo recently warned, “The Government has had almost a benign attitude to people who were forewarned in that period, like on the East Coast lands, that they should not conclude deals with a Government that had fallen through a no-confidence motion, especially after the elections were held, after the APNU lost the elections.”
The Vice President accelerated the threat, saying “People have an option now, those who received the land and are prepared to give it up – the large tracts of land – we promised people that we will take back because they were done illegally. Those individuals have a pathway, they don’t have to worry about criminal actions being taken against them. They don’t have to worry, that is those individuals who voluntarily give back the land.”
The government has failed to show where there was illegality on the part of NICIL in disposing with the lands. The December 2018 NCV, voted in the National Assembly, was in June 2019 ruled by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to be successfully passed. The Court, however, never ordered the government to stop functioning. The ruling upheld Article 106 (7) of the Constitution of Guyana, that permits the government to function until an election is held and a new president sworn in. The CCJ Consequential Order of July 2019 made this clear, including citation of a Canadian authority, of government functioning under the new circumstance.
The Government seems to be exacting vengeance, not respecting the laws and the ruling of the Court. In seeking to reclaim the lands there seems to be greater reliance on threats to sway public opinion that the lands were not legitimately acquired in the hope that the present owners would be shamed into returning them. The argument is irrational, vindictive, and unconscionable.
While on one hand the government is threatening businesses, including the state-owned Guyana Oil Company, to return the properties, the government is not demanding from foreigners that they return, or at least renegotiate, the Stabroek and Canje oil blocks. President Donald Ramotar, a few days before the 2015 Election, signed away these blocks in a secret deal. The Election was already underway, and government was in transition. So far, those blocks are said to have at least nine billion barrels of oil and worth billions of United States dollars. Certainly, Guyanese who rather prefer the NICIL lands developed by Guyanese than be robbed billions of U.S dollars from the secret giveaway of the oil blocks.
It is evident seeking to repossess those lands is not about legality but about who benefitted, under whose administration they were given out, and the government feeling theirs is the sole right to determine who gets those lands. If that were not their sole interests, they would go after reclaiming the oil blocks, which thus far, is the greatest giveaway of Guyana’s wealth, and by a previous PPP/C administration.
It is an evil tactic to publicly shame and insult people into submission or silence. It is immoral not unlike what United States President Donald Trump has done to Americans, leaders and citizens around the world. Those espousing such behaviour show no regard for institutions. They only recognise the laws when the laws work for them and disregard or misrepresent the laws when they are being held accountable. These persons prey on our worst fears and reap the spoils division creates. They thrive on greed, name-calling, shaming, insulting, and trafficking in lies. It is a tactic that is vindictive, vengeful, and wrong. Americans rejected it and Guyanese should do likewise.
