Housing and Water Minister Irfaan Ali said that former MP and AFC Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan has no creditability to lecture anyone in the society on issues of corruption, transparency, or accountability.
Ali said that Ramjattan needs to cease seeking to score cheap political points by misinforming the public about parliamentary issues and matters which are of vital importance to the public’s welfare.
Ali was at the time responding to continued attacks on his character and integrity by the AFC executive member through what he referred to as the “discredited and tabloid like Kaieteur News paper”. The government minister took offence at the allegations and assertions made over the past two days which sought to suggest that Ali had misled the Parliament when he made a request through the Parliament in 2010 for some Gy$4 billion in additional expenditure to be approved which would be spent in the housing sector.
Minister Ali said that Ramjattan is bitter and continues to harp on the fact that he was successful in securing a prima facie case which resulted in him being placed before the parliamentary privileges committee, and forced to defend himself and his integrity.
“As a matter of fact, the investment of four billion dollars has seen and will continue to see the provision of housing for the Guyanese populace. It was a critical impetus for the sugar industry and for this I have no regrets because the welfare of the people, their upliftment as well as the safeguarding of critical sectors of this country is of paramount importance, not Ramjattan and his political water boy games,” Ali said.
He maintained that he had not committed any breaches nor did he break any of the standing orders of the National Assembly when he responded in principle to the various questions posed by opposition parliamentarians after government sought the additional funds in supplementary papers.
Ali argued that Ramjattan was trying to advance “a political plot and agenda aimed at discrediting the sector” because he was aware of its numerous accomplishments.
He stated that the Kaieteur News was being used to peddle all sorts of misinformation especially as it said that he would be going before the privileges committee for a “trial”. “It points to a broader political perspective where it seems that AFC’s and Ramjattan’s positions were that the investment in the housing sector and GuySuCo was a bad investment,” he said.
As a result, Ali argued that “their position on the sugar industry comes into question… they saw this as opportunity to have the industry shut down… this may have been where they suffered a massive defeat in Parliament,” Ali noted.
Ali said Ramjattan must explain why he is instituting charges of alleged corruption or parliamentary contempt against a member of the National Assembly even though the duly constituted privileges committee had not made any ruling on the matter. The housing minister maintained that he stood by every word uttered during the Ninth Parliament, stating that personalities such as Ramjattan could not seek to try breathe life into dead bones in an attempt to achieve some form of relevance or get “cheap media time”.
The Speaker of the Ninth Parliament, Ralph Ramkarran, had stated when he made the decision to allow the minister to go before the committee, that the move did not mean in any way that Ali was guilty of any wrongdoing.
He made it clear that the privileges committee would be constituted to examine the merits and demerits of the arguments put forward by Ramjattan and would make recommendations.
Ramkarran has also had cause to have the former AFC parliamentarian apologise to the National Assembly, government of Guyana and the parliamentary staff after he made false allegations in the public domain through the Kaieteur News that the “Hansard of the Parliament was tampered with”.
