Strangers to the truth

Roadrunner Politics

Faith Harding seemed to have hit a raw nerve when she accused David Granger – who his wide-eyed acolytes Harripaul and Archer swear walks on water – of being ‘a stranger to truth’! She was referring; of course, to the stunts Granger and his godfather ROH Corbin pulled during the stage-managed selection election for the PNC’s presidential candidate. Harding was merely questioning the process: to say it was ‘outcomedeterminative’ would be like saying the ocean has water.

From what Harding revealed, the process would not have been unfamiliar to Wile E Coyote in his pursuit of the Roadrunner. A surfeit of absurdly contrived stratagems: dynamite, cliffs, falling rocks, exploding shotguns etc. With Granger/Corbin’s stymieing of Harding and the other contenders, we had – drawing a Granger raffle and handing out Granger paraphernalia on selection day; not assigning her any responsibilities, PNC PR personnel and vehicles only for Granger; big ones calling supporters to support Granger; Corbin and company supporting a Granger book launch during the contest. Whew! That Harding survived all those ambushes was probably due to the same luck that blessed the Roadrunner. We wish her well.

As she pointed out, the PNC has played a devastating role in sidelining women from their top leadership status. Quite ironic for a party that has literally been kept afloat by its indefatigable brigade of women activists.

Granger’s aloofness and callousness was exemplified by his response to Harding’s charges: “Her departure will not damage the party.” Shame on you! Loose cannon Tony Viera, sidelined even by APNU for being a loose cannon, in another one that is stranger to truth.

More than anyone in Guyana, he waged a viciously racist campaign for more than a decade that the PPP government was pampering “Indian” sugar workers. He screamed that the PPP was increasing sugar workers’ wages to levels that would cripple the industry.

Now speaking from the other side of his mouth he speculates that the government kept the EC grant from the industry so that “they could say that they did not have money to pay their workers a better wage”! Monkeying around The Muckraker-in-Chief is not just a stranger to truth. He’s been out of contact with truth for so long he would not recognise it if it jumped up and bit him on his behind.

Referring to the opposition refusing approval of funds paid for overtime to registry workers or to prepare the plot for the Specialty Hospital, he claimed: “It was revealed that moneys were improperly spent.” We challenge him to reveal when and where this was “revealed” even as we ask him if he e-mailed his article from Monkey Mountain. After all, it’s more than 28 days since Gouveia challenged him to put up or shut up on lies he wrote about the Duke Lodge acquisition.

Suspending truth

And on the topic of that same acquisition, Gouveia had authorised his bookkeeper Christopher “Suspenders” Ram to open his books (Gouveia’s) to the Muckraker-in-chief.

Now Ram is not just a stranger to the truth; he is a declared enemy of the truth. Thus, while Ram couldn’t find time to say whether he was approached by Kissoon (with whom he’s in quite intimate contact – birds of a feather?) for the details, he’s in the Stabber burnishing his reputation for falsification. He’s complaining that COP Greene was hired past the 55 year retirement age for COPs. But isn’t this the same man who’s been clamouring for Kissoon to be re-hired past the retirement age of 60? Green can’t function past 55 but Kissoon can past 60?

He claims Greene’s contract extension is illegal because Jagdeo/Luncheon doesn’t have the authority to do that. (He’s wrong on that count.) But it’s OK for the UG Vice Chancellor to extend Kissoon’s contract even though he doesn’t have the authority? Such is the topsy-turvy world of strangers to the truth!