Stabroek News editorial on Ramotar and Ramsarran

from Stabroek News--The President and the dismissal of Dr. Ramsaran
By prevaricating on the removal of Dr. Bheri Ramsaran from his Cabinet after the former Health Minister had publicly and verbally abused rights activist Sherlina Nageer in Berbice then, following his patently insincere apology, done so again at another forum, immediately after, President Donald Ramotar did neither his own public image nor that of his government any favours. And if it was a mistake to await that sharp burst of political protest before – as he put it in a public interview – doing what he had to do, the President, wittingly or unwittingly, may have caused questions to be raised about the sincerity of his own actions by himself making a statement in the aforementioned public interview to the effect that the dismissal of his seriously delinquent Health Minister was an unfortunate occurrence and that he felt sorry for him, the basis for sympathy being that Dr. Ramsaran was “set up” or baited into unleashing his tirade against Ms. Nageer.

Ms. Nageer

What a thing for the President to say.

One must of course hope that President Ramotar is not implying in any way that his former Health Minister is vulnerable to being “set up” or baited into publicly abusing and threatening a woman in the vilest fashion. If that is so the question surely arises as to whether Dr. Ramsaran is temperamentally suited to public office in the first place; an equally pertinent question, of course, is whether being “set up” (whatever that means) is some sort of mitigating circumstance that justifies or excuses Dr. Ramsaran’s actions and makes his removal from public office a matter of official regret.

If it is true that much of the fallout from the incident may have been fuelled by the coincidence of the political season two points should be made here. First, it was hardly possible for misdeeds of the magnitude of Dr. Ramsaran’s treatment of Ms. Nageer to be blown out of proportion and, secondly, did the President seriously expect that occurring as it did in the height of the election campaign season Dr. Ramsaran’s outburst and the government’s seeming initial indifference to calls for his removal from public office would have escaped the attention of its political opponents?

In the wake of Dr. Ramsaran’s public abuse of Ms. Nageer the government appeared to believe that a proverbial rap on the knuckles was a sufficient enough sanction. That itself was a serious error in political judgment. As it happened, its discovery to the contrary came only after public opinion, including the opinion of a considerable section of the diplomatic community provided a harsh reminder that gender issues and more particularly the scale of the problem of mistreatment (and murder) of women remains, alongside violent crime on the whole, the most urgent issue on the national agenda.

Dr. Ramsaran’s dismissal did eventually come but then, afterwards, so did the President’s reported pronouncements which appeared very much to want to present the sacked Minister as the victim rather than the villain that he really was.

One conclusion that might well be drawn from the manner in which this distasteful episode has unfolded and particularly from what the President has had to say publicly on the dismissal of Dr. Ramsaran is that the former Health Minister’s removal from the Cabinet was merely an act of political expediency and that he remains very much in favour with the administration. Just what that says about the administration’s real position on the issue of the continually worsening treatment of women (at least two more women have been murdered by their spouses/boyfriends in the past week or so) is a question that the President might wish to answer even as he seeks a mandate for another term in office from an electorate that comprises mostly women.

On the whole – and since national indifference to the issue of the mistreatment of women is by no means confined to any single group in the society – we would do well to cause this incident to remind us of our continually worsening plight of the mistreatment of women and of the need to remove what, all too frequently, are disturbing signs of ambivalence at the highest levels of the society to tackling the crisis head on. Those who rule cannot be excused the sending of mixed signals on this issue.
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Sherlina Nagar Amazon author page
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Dr. Jagan's daughter blasts PPP leadership corruption

In April 2012, at a memorial for Dr Jagan, his daughter Ms Nadira Jagan-Brancier expressed her profound disappointment with the current PPP/C leadership.

Vote for the restoration of decent values in Guyana

Describing her parents as simple, humble people who fought for the working class, she said: “That is what they stood for, but the party has moved away.” She pointed out that her father did not have a big, ostentatious home like today’s party officials; she described her parents as modest, incorruptible people of integrity and high standards. Ms Jagan-Brancier said that these values do not exist in the PPP/C today

““My parents were probably the most incorruptible people you would ever find; their honesty and integrity were of very high standards, but unfortunately that does not exist or I don’t see it in many of the leaders of the party and the government.”

The General Secretary of the PPP, Mr Ramotar and his comrades use Cheddi’s name but Nadira Jagan said, “they fail to live up really and truly to what her parents had stood for.” 

Dr. Cheddi Jagan

Ms  Jagan noted that her parents lived very simple lives: “The house is there and I really encourage people to use the opportunity to go in Bel Air and see the house where they lived… They lived a very simple life; they didn’t have big ostentatious homes that you see nowadays that government officials and party officials have…” she said in her address .

In Nadira Jagan’s words, “… I think the party has moved away − not the party but certain elements in the party − from these very, very important values that held the party together and what makes the PPP what it is, and so for me, when I look at some of the things happening, my parents may not be turning in their graves, but they must be churning up in the waters of the rivers [in which their ashes were sprinkled].”

Reasons for No Confidence motion against the Guyana Government

Kaiteur News Article by AFC Parliamentarian Moses Nagamootoo 

It was on the Order Paper for debate, and passage, on November 10, 2014. But the minority PPP government, out of fear of those 10 tiny words, shut down Parliament by a Presidential Proclamation, styled “Prorogation”.

Moses Nagamootoo

Guyanese hardly knew that word before. But they are now seeing widespread condemnation of the PPP’s action, many seeing it as cowardly, as anti-democratic, as dictatorial.

Even present “comrade” like Joey Jagan and former leader, Ralph Ramkarran and colleague Henry Jeffrey, have come out against the prorogation, and have joined the call for Parliament to be re-convened.

The PPP, which under Ramotar lost its majority in the National Assembly in 2011, has now found itself almost totally isolated on this issue. The major Western partners have warned that Guyana is stepping out of the folds of democratic states. Caribbean press concluded that whilst the PPP government was elected, it has now lost legitimacy. This is not a good place in which a minority government should find itself.

Stabroek Market-Georgetown, Guyana

President Ramotar is buckling. He knows that he could lose two years of his term, in much the same way that Mrs. Janet Jagan lost hers, and was forced by pressure politics in 1999 to hand the country over to her worse nightmare – Jagdeo.

He has indicated that he would limit the prorogation period and, also, he has summoned the Opposition Leader to talks. But all too late, as no decent Opposition would talk whilst their Parliament is shut down, or under political duress. The combined opposition has said: “no parliament; no talks”. They would raise the tempo: “No Parliament; No Government”.

10 COMMANDMENTS
It is now timely to explain why those historic 10 words have been used as a commandment for the government to go.

Basically, it captured and reproduced one of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shall not steal”.

That was the immediate, underlining reason, for the no confidence motion which I first floated during July 2014 on my Facebook page as a rhetorical question. People responded that it was a good idea.

At that time, we were confronted with a situation in which the Government spent $4.5 billion without the approval, in defiance of the opposition of the National Assembly, and in violation of Articles 217 to 220 of the Guyana Constitution, which prohibit unauthorized and illegal spending of public monies.

The minority PPP Government had thrown down the gauntlet. It would not obey the National Assembly, nor be accountable to the House. It was declared that the PPP would disobey the Guyana Constitution that commands government to spend the people’s money only with parliamentary consent. Parliament is the keeper of the people’s purse.

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The AFC lodged a complaint with the Commissioner of Police that the Minister of Finance has violated the law, and that he has committed an unlawful act for which he ought to be prosecuted. Up to this time, no charges have been laid against the Finance Minister.

A Partnership for National Unity by motion sent the Finance Minister before the Privileges Committee of Parliament for him to show cause why he should not lose his seat or be prosecuted. But, predictably, the PPP circled the wagons.

It considered as an Untouchable the Finance Minister, just in the same way that it cuddled the Home Affairs Minister when three peaceful, unarmed, protesters were shot and killed in Linden and, more recently, vouched for the integrity of the cuss-bird, Chatree Attorney General, when he intimated that an independent, non-government newspaper would be attacked and innocent persons would be harmed.

The prorogation shut down the tribunal, and the Minister remains at large, a free man. Unlike Watergate, when sanctions were finally imposed, All the President’s Men are out there – handing out state vouchers to needy parents, spewing silly excuses for the President’s uncouth behavior, and unleashing feral blasts against the opposition on state media, in what must be a pre-election jaunt.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION
The Guyana Constitution provides protection for the people against a rogue government that would violate the law and the Constitution itself with impunity. Article 106 (6) states:
“The Cabinet including the President shall resign if the Government is defeated by the vote of a majority of all the elected members of the National Assembly on a vote of confidence.”
New general elections should then be held within three months.

But President Ramotar made a pre-emptive strike. He shut down the Parliament on the day he re-convened it. He ran from the No Confidence Motion. I was to use cricket parlance on that day when I said that the no confidence motion was like a bouncer. And Donald Ducked. It was my nephew, Mahendra Nagamootoo, a former national and West Indies bowler, who gave Ramotar’s action that spin.

OTHER MAJOR VIOLATIONS
But illegal spending was just the immediate cause. There must be 101 other reasons, many for constitutional violations, why this government must go.  ·

o Denial of Local Government elections last held in 1994;
•   Refusal by the President to assent to opposition Bills;
•   Failure to set up Public Procurement Commission to check corruption;
•  Non-appointment of a Chairperson for the Integrity Commission to probe funds of public officials;
•  Diversion of billions in public funds to NICIL and retention/spending of same without parliamentary approval or scrutiny;
•   Giveaway of television and radio spectrum to cronies of the regime;
•   Misuse of state resources and media for partisan, PPP party propaganda purposes;
Join Amazon Prime - Listen to Over a Million Songs - Start Free Trial Now •   Use of confidential tax information to blackmail critics and to terrorise dissidents;
•   Complicity in plot to discredit and destroy the character of the Speaker of the National Assembly.
•
Guyanese would add to this “Crime List” the lack of protection from widespread crime, joblessness, and despair leading to drugs abuse, suicide and migration.

The PPP can no longer use prorogation as a fig leaf to cover its incompetence and misrule.

Guyana decides that Guyana/Suriname Bridge will be placed at Moleson Creek

The Guyana Government has begun the process of building a bridge across the Corentyne River to link Guyana and Suriname. Advertisements for bids to construct  bridges along the access road to the main bridge have been placed in a Guyana newspaper. An advertisement in the state-owned Guyana Chronicle last week invited bids for the project which will be done under the Ministry of Public Works’ Capital Bridges Programme.

President Bouterse and President Ramotar

The Invitation For Bids (IFB) said that the construction period for the bridges is to be 40 weeks.

Bids open on December 2.

Geoffrey Vaughn, Coordinator of the Works Services Group of the Ministry,said

Guyana has already decided that the bridge will be built in the vicinity of the Moleson Creek stelling, Corentyne, Berbice, which currently has a ferry operating between the two countries.Suriname is still finalizing details on where the bridge will be anchored on the eastern side. One proposed location is President Desi BouterseSouth Drain, Suriname to Parrot Island to mainland Guyana.

Takutu Bridge Guyana /Brazil

The idea for the bridge was developed after a visit to by Surinamese President, Desi Bouterse, in September 2010.

Earlier this year, Guyana Foreign Affairs Minister, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, said that the Chinese Government will finance the construction of the bridge through a joint loan to the two countries.

This loan will be part of the US$3B in loans to 10 Caribbean nations, that was announced by Chinese President, Xi Jinping in 2013.

 

China's President with Trinidad and Tobago PM

Both Guyana and Suriname are working to link their countries to Brazil and South America. Guyana has recently linked to Brazil with a bridge across the Takutu River.

With a bridge connecting Guyana and Brazil at Takutu, Region Nine, a link with Suriname has been seen as  a massive step for the integration of South America.

In 2010, Suriname’s then Minister of Public Works Ramon Abrahams signed a Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with two Chinese companies: Cheng Don International and China Harbor, for US$6 billion worth of investments. Other projects include the construction of a new deep-sea harbor, a sea dam from Albina to Nickerie, a new highway from Paramaribo to the Johan Adolf Pengel International Airport, and 8,000 low-income houses.

"The idea of linking Suriname to its neighbors is part of the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America," Mr. Abrahams  said.

According to Abrahams financing from other Chinese sources will go towards building bridges that will span the Corentyne and the Marowijne rivers, which form the natural borders between Suriname and Guyana and Cayenne respectively.

Feasibility studies have already been conducted for the Corentyne River bridge .

Suriname Airways returns to Guyana after six years

APRIL 4, 2012 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER NEWS 

 - offers direct flights to Miami  By Kristen Macklingam

After six years, Suriname Airways has returned to Guyana and is now offering

President Donald Ramotar and Suriname President Des Bouterse exchange views shortly after the arrival of Flight 737

non-stop flights to Miami.

The inaugural flight arrived yesterday at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) at 10:00 hrs.

On board were Surinamese President and Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Chairperson, Desi Bouterse and a delegation who were welcomed by Guyana’s President, Donald Ramotar, and his delegation.
President Ramotar, moments after the plane touched down on Guyanese soil, stated that history was once more created with the Suriname Airways Flight 737’s arrival at CJIA after many years of absence.

He pointed out that the relationship between Guyana and Suriname continues to grow stronger, while referring to the recent opening of Surinamese insurance company, Assuria, in Guyana.

“Only four days ago I was at a ceremony involving both countries, Suriname’s insurance company in Guyana, the Assuria. This shows that Guyana and Suriname are taking very seriously our commitment towards integration – our countries, economies and integration with CARICOM as a whole. This step of Suriname Airways flying to Guyana and going on to Miami is very important to all of us,” said President Ramotar.

The Head-of-State emphasised the importance of such bilateral agreements, which would help Guyana to further develop as a country and as a CARICOM member.

He said that such an event offers another possibility of developing the tourist industry in Guyana, which Suriname has already been successful in doing.

“Because of our geographical positions, where we are, being Caribbean countries and South American countries, this is another very practical and material step toward having even broader integration of the South… We need more flights directly to our country to encourage the development of tourism, because we have a very good tourist product that we can develop,” said President Ramotar.

He added that with Suriname Airways coming directly to Guyana it offers the country “an easier and faster way” of travelling to Europe, while attracting more European tourists to Guyana.

Suriname Airways Flight 737 touching down at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, yesterday

President Bouterse, in his address to the media, shared President Ramotar’s sentiments.

“This auspicious moment is of special significance because it is another manifestation of the growing friendship and cooperation between Guyana and Suriname. Our countries have pledged to improve the connectivity in South America by air, land and water to facilitate the people by people contact as well as movement of goods.

“Our two countries have made great progress in the field of land connectivity, for example, through implementation of the ferry at South Drain (Suriname) and Springlands (Guyana) and we are currently in the process of weighing our options for the construction of a bridge over the Corentyne River,” said the Suriname President.

Meanwhile, Guyana’s Minister of Public Works, Transport and Hydraulics, Robeson Benn, at the launching ceremony stated that open skies and competitive prices are necessary to maintain the air bridge to North America and develop the Southern air linkages within the Caribbean.
He also pointed out that almost G$1B has already been spent on developing and modernising the tower and air navigation systems at the CJIA, as the country continues to make large investments in developing airport infrastructure.

Presently there is a proposal to build a new airport terminal building which will extend the size of the building from its present 9,000 sq. metres to 14,000 sq. metres and an extension of the runway from 7,500 feet to 10,500 feet.

It was noted that the recent developments at the Ogle International Airport have ensured that the said airport has become a regional hub for international flights.

“There is an allocation in national budget this year of over 4.5 billion dollars towards these expansion works, which would see us being able to continue to facilitate the development in the air transport sector in Guyana and to facilitate the airlines from other countries coming to our country,” said Benn.

He stressed the need for both Guyana and Suriname to ensure travelling is “safe, efficient and cheap enough” so that there can be sustainable operations which will resound to the benefit of both countries.

Such developments are necessary to guarantee the development of economic synergies which will see improvements in both Suriname and Guyana’s bilateral relations as well as the economic development of the nations, he said.

According to Suriname’s Minister of Transport, Industry and Communications, Falisie Pinas, his country and Guyana have a long history of trade cooperation, and this has great spin-off benefits.

“There is sufficient trade between our nations and at this moment visitors from Guyana are the second largest group that is visiting Suriname. In 2012 we had 30,000 Guyanese visitors and in 2011 we had 33,000. With this new route we hope to open doors to more visitors and trade between our two countries and countries across the world. Regional integration and tourism development are two important quality goals of Suriname and transportation can contribute very well in keeping these goals.”

Also present at the ceremony was Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce (ag), Irfaan Ali.

Shortly after the launching ceremony, the flight took off for Miami with a number of Caribbean media operatives on board, along with scheduled passengers.

GRANGER EXPRESSES DISMAY OVER RAMOTAR’S TIRADE

Leader of the Opposition, Brigadier David Granger has expressed dismay over remarks attributed to President Donald Ramotar in an interview published last weekend in the state-owned Guyana Chronicle newspaper.

President Ramotar accused the Opposition of pursuing a strong “racial” line, of “manipulation” of the elections and of acting in “bad faith.” The interview – which carried the bizarre title: “King Solomon, two mothers and the converse leadership qualities of the PPP/C and PNC aka APNU-AFC examined in a chat with President Donald Ramotar”, was written by Parvati Persaud-Edwards.

Mr. Granger was astonished at the fact that President Ramotar’s remarks were factually incorrect.  They had the added effect of fostering the false impression in the public mind that the Opposition parties had actually broken the law by practising racism and perpetrating electoral fraud.  In negotiations, according to President Ramotar, the Opposition was untrustworthy.

These charges Mr. Granger said, had the potential to undermine the bases of the current tripartite discussions taking place among A Partnership for National Unity, the Alliance for Change and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic.  President Ramotar’s remarks – to the effect that “they renege on their promises and act in bad faith” –  are certain to sour the atmosphere of the talks and impair the goodwill APNU has tried to nourish.

Mr. Granger was shocked that, despite the gravity of these charges, President Ramotar did not offer a shred of evidence. President Ramotar claimed that the Opposition actually "penetrated GECOM and controlled [to some extent] the elections machinery, where they were not even taking instructions from the Chairman or the Chief Elections Officer and they were doing a lot of manipulation, but could not explain how this could have happened.” He also claimed, without reason, “For sure, I think we had over 50%.  I think we lost some votes, no doubt, but I don’t think we lost enough to bring us under 50%, but the results were through manipulation. My own realistic assessment was that we had probably between 52 – 53%.”

Mr. Granger was alarmed at President Ramotar’s claim of racism.  Ignoring the PPP/C’s poor performance over the years, Ramotar claimed, baldly, “I think we lost some support there [in Linden] largely because the Opposition carried a very strong racial line in their campaign.”

Mr. Granger said that President Ramotar’s remarks are “untrue, unstatesmanlike, untimely and unhelpful,” and should be withdrawn.