Throwing a brick

Professional shakedown

It is a perverted practice of delinquents to just ‘throw a brick’ in the dark just to see who will be hit. They cackle at the outraged screams of unwary victims. It’s the same mindless viciousness that typifies the opposition AFC’s attacks on NICIL. But it’s not just the cheap thrill of the cackles they seek – it’s to turn Guyanese against Guyanese by claiming that the government is ‘hiding’ billions of dollars in NICIL while the country is in need.

Leading the pack have been Ramjattan and his cohort, “Suspenders”, the latter still searching for his 15 minutes in the spotlight. It’s no use bemoaning that as a lawyer and a bookkeeper respectively, these reprobates ought to know the laws governing corporations such as NICIL. They’re breaking every shred of professional ethics to so deliberately misstate the law: corporations are only required to pass on dividends to their stockholders – in this case the government.

If they want to quibble as to the quantum of the billions of dollars in dividends passed to the government over the years, fine. But don’t claim that a corporation cannot have retained earnings! However, the head of NICIL, Brassington, revealed a very disturbing nugget that exposes the venality of those that are leading the witchhunt against NICIL. “Suspenders” had been hired as a bookkeeper by NICIL back in 2004 – and after collecting his mega fees – here he is spilling his guts about figures from that era.

Many would say that this is a professional shakedown.

This is the same stunt that “Suspenders” pulled on GuySuCo after his bookkeeping services were terminated by that corporation around the same time. Would we have heard all these criticisms if he had been retained on the payrolls? You bet your booty not! He squeaked not a word about ‘improprieties’ back then.

The less said about Nagamootoo collecting huge fees at NICIL the better.

Human wrongs

We know that the whole concept of ‘human rights’ is quite contested, but will someone explain to us how the GHRA could possibly take up cudgels against the group that doesn’t want people fired? Are we missing something here? The government proposes a budget – the opposition make random chops, throwing hundreds of people on the breadline – and the GHRA decides they are heroes?

The GHRA’s rationale is that the government faced ‘opposition’ on the budget – and this had to be ‘democratic’ and good. Not a word about the content of the ‘opposing’! So if Hitler opposed the German government on the “Jewish question” before he seized power this would have been good, according to GHRA. But we shouldn’t be surprised. The GHRA is a key cog in the implacable opposition to the PPP in every shape and form. Its agenda is dictated by its foreign funders.

The small coterie under Mike McCormack act as their local informants and ‘gofers’. Is McCormack blind to the hypocrisy of Ramjattan and the AFC that criticise the sale by NICIL of the Sanata Complex, but not of Guyana Stores? At least in the first instance the government was fully paid!

Burnham’s anti-African racism?

The AFC said the PPP is ‘racist’ for seeking to reduce Linden’s electricity subsidy. So what was Burnham, who said in 1976: “What we hope to do when you (Lindeners) are integrated into the general scheme is to bring you straight under the umbrella of the GEC. I don’t know how much it will cost, but you will certainly have to pay no more than the people in the rest of Guyana pay. I do not promise you that you will necessarily get it cheaper than other people, because as prime minister I cannot have favourites.”