Lie detectors, mockery & dictatorship in Guyana
Freddie Kissoon column - Elected dictatorship and mockery
Two mockeries have descended on the land of Guyana within one day. On the same day that President Jagdeo announced that the acting Head of CANU would be dismissed because he failed a lie detector test, PM Hinds stated that Guyana may not be ready for the Freedom of Information Act.
These two decisions are not only characteristic of the dictatorial cloth that the Government has wrapped itself in since the 2001 elections, but within each emanation there is the taste of mockery and asininity.
Let us deal with the acting head of CANU first. One wonders if President Jagdeo was not ashamed to say “acting,” because his government has reduced this nation to the ugly infamy where a large number of sensitive appointments within the pubic sector are in the acting mode.
This thing about the lie detector test is beginning to resemble the ballistics mockery never before seen in this part of the global community. Today, no one accepts the Police explanation on ballistics. Every bullet in any heinous crime seems to come from the same gun. The Police have repeated this satire so often that it is no longer accepted by the population.
Now we have all kinds of security officials failing the lie detector test. Now is the time to ask three questions about this examination. Are the machines worthwhile? If yes, who are the people administering the test? It is being used for political purposes? A test is only as good as the person doing it.
Remember, in the early eighties, the thallium scare? We didn’t have the lamps to properly test. Then there are cases in the past where people showed up HIV positive, only to find out that they were not.
It is possible that there is no competence in the administering of the test. More importantly, there is the question that the lie detector scheme may be an avenue to get rid of certain personnel in the security sector and have them replaced with more malleable personalities.
After CANU, it will be the GDF, then the GPF, then the Prison Service. Opposition parties and civil society should begin studying the sinister motive behind the lie detector introduction. Why is the mechanism being assigned to CANU first and not the Ministers, then all GRA employees?
If Guyana has introduced the polygraph as a mandatory feature for certain sensitive jobs, then the requirement should be applied to those coming in. If you fail the scrutiny, then you lose points. But it cannot be the basis for dismissing persons who are already on the job.
There is no scientific and legal basis for termination of contract because the test was failed. On what ground are you going to tell the person that they committed a wrong? This is a dictatorial direction and one that mocks the existence of natural justice.
There has been no complaint against the acting Head of CANU. There has been no controversy surrounding the work of the CANU head. If there was, then maybe one could have argued for the test.
There is, however, a myriad of evidence of wrongdoing against certain high-level PPP members who hold state positions. Some of the accusations are so grave that even in communist and military tyrannies there would have been some form of investigation. One monstrous incident needs to be mentioned.
A party mandarin [brother # 18 aka bherri ramsarran] who has ministerial status was accused by a young girl of being sexually touched by this fellow when she was being given a ride home. The home turned out not to be hers, but his. In these kinds of controversy, the lie detector should have been administered.
One should lead by example. If the Government has made the polygraph mandatory for high state actors, then why not display the appropriate moral standard and apply the thing to the President, his Ministers and the party appointees to the parastatals?
The misuse of the polygraph by a corrupt, incompetent cabal recalls an incident in Ecuador a few years ago, when an elected government became a dictatorship.
From one mockery we come to another. Is the PM stuck on one sentence only? “Guyana may not be ready.”
When he defended the radio monopoly, he told the media Guyana may not be ready for the opening up of the radio licence. Now he claims that Guyana may not be ready for the Freedom of Information Act. The least said of this absurdity the better.
The PM opens up himself, unfortunately, to public ridicule, because in effect he is saying that Guyana is not ready for embracing some of the most valuable and priceless contents of modern democracy.
Was Guyana ready for free election in 1992? It doesn’t look so. We had it, and look what it produced. One thing for sure; Guyana is not ready for PPP leadership. Shall I tell you what became of elected dictatorship in Ecuador?
