Forbes Burnham’s nationalism vs Bharrat Jagdeo’s - Freddie Kissoon
Let me tell you a story of how unbelievable the violation of the nationalist principles of this country by the present PPP Government is. I got a story in 2006 from one of the most powerfully placed persons in the Government, one who works closely with President Jagdeo. This person is a Jagdeo loyalist and a PPP mandarin, but he is a nationalist.
He told me that a man was building a commercial structure on the trench or the holding pond situated on the southern carriageway of the Railway Embankment at Cummings Lodge, just yards from where I live. I didn’t believe him. It was impossible. No one would do that, not after what the Great Floods of 2005 did to Cummings Lodge, Turkeyen, and the whole of the lower East Coast.
I went to Glenn Lall, the publisher of this newspaper, and told him that I was on to a startling tale of the abuse of nationalism. Mr. Lall was all smiles. He simply told me to drop my eerie story, because I had mistaken a sea defence work going on for a private construction and that I will get the paper in trouble for wrong reporting.
He also said to me that no one would be that crazy to erect a commercial building on a trench that drains an entire village. He was wrong. I persisted. He then said to me: “Get me photographs from every angle.” I did that. Glenn Lall couldn’t believe his eyes. He got up from his seat and exclaimed, “What?!”
I ran the aberration in my column, entitled, “Yes, right in the middle of the highway.” City Council subsequently responded to the outrage that followed. Now we are into another similar controversy — the questionable leasing of the Sanata Textile Mills and its huge surrounding estate.
One of the theories I have invented in my study of state power under the Jagdeo presidency is that the Government and the state in Guyana have an antithetical relation. It is a novel theory, the complexity of which cannot be outlined in a simple newspaper column. I will be addressing a delegation of the Caribbean Congress of Labour, where I hope to adumbrate the dimensions of my theoretical construct.
I am positing that the PPP organization does not like the state and wants to diminish the role of the state. In traditional political theory, the Government shapes and protects the state. Ironically, and in a macabre way, the Government in Guyana resents the nature of the state and intends to weaken it. The evidence I have to argue my case is abundant.
It is here that I see a crucial difference between the Burnham leadership style and Mr. Jagdeo’s approach to nationalism. Burnham’s essential politics revolved around the nationalist love for Guyana. It sprang from the way the African middle class evolved in the Guyanese society.
Burnham was a dictator, but there was nothing in his autocratic structure and his oligarchic system that conflicted with his nationalist fixation. The reopening of the Venezuela border claim is the biggest sore on the nationalist balance sheet of the Burnham years.
Burnham refused to give GAIBANK’s and Guyana Mortgage Finance Bank’s money to the entrepreneurs who borrowed huge sums and couldn’t pay back. Burnham told them that they had to repay their loans.
There doesn’t seem to be any enduring strand of nationalism in Jagdeo’s management of the economy. I have researched this subject, and the discoveries are shocking. Guyana’s resources are being sold for a song, or are being given away. It is a venality that demands urgent response from every major stakeholder in this land.
There are more questions than answers in the Sanata Textile leasing. First, when you examine the capital status of the company that got the lease, then why should an enormous investor be treated so generously? The Government’s role is to facilitate small businesses. Why should the US give concessions to General Electric when that company’s resources are incalculable?
Similarly, why should the Government give land to companies that are so wealthy that they can purchase such land at market value?
I remember that the post-1992 Government of Cheddi Jagan carved out a housing scheme in Eccles and offered house lots for a million dollars to purchasers. Then it turned out that many of these buyers were business people with gargantuan holdings. House lots that should have gone to teachers, nurses and civil servants ended up in the hands of the super-rich. How could I ever respect Cheddi Jagan?
Secondly, why give a lease for so long — 99 years? That is virtually a giveaway. Thirdly, how could the Government proceed with the agreement when there was only one tender? Why not hold the land and keep re-tendering? So, are we to take it that, once there is only one tender, then the item will be given to that bidder? That is dangerous.
Fourthly, how do we know there was only one tender? This is a Government that has absolutely no respect for transparency and accountability. Fifthly, why did the agreement not allow for the GRA to retain the space they have on the estate for the holding of imports until the paper work is completed? Who is now collecting that rent?
Remember Robeson Benn discovered that the civil aviation authority was paying an enormous monthly rent for a little house in Prashad Nagar. Sixthly, if the requirements of the contract are not fulfilled by the three-year stipulation, can the deal be cancelled?
The Sanata Textiles lease doesn’t sound right, doesn’t look good, and lacks nationalist spirit.
Tags: bharrat jagdeo, forbes burnham, freddie kissoon, guyana
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