Taking Responsibility....

The honorable Winston Dookeran may have cost himself all of his political capital when, in trying to please everybody with his maiden budget, ended up pleasing nobody. The contentious CL Financial CLICO issue that remains a burning sore on the backs of the population has been reworked to be a sop to all and ended up only rewarding the gang of thieves that caused the problem in the first place.

There are questions that have to be asked  by institutions capable of laying charges, including who knew what and when, who did what and who helped, who got paid to look the other way, and answered by the former captains of the ship. The Supervisor of Insurance, the Central Bank Governor and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance were all given a heads up on the state of these Companies by outgoing Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj when he told the nation that the group was insolvent seven years prior. Why was no action taken since then?

Where is the accountability?

In an act that literally robs Peter to pay Paul, the Government through the Minister also tacked the failed Hindu Credit Union on for good measure, as if to say 'if we covering one set of thieves why not cover all'. 

Now Mr. Dookeran, what the people need to know before you remove one dollar from the treasury is, will there be investigations into Duprey and his cabal and cowboy Harry Harnarine? Because if the Government takes responsibility for their transgressions and misadventures, is the Government then making itself an accessory after the fact?

The country needs serious people to take responsibility over the fortunes of the nation, and again I say the time for posturing and posing is up.

If the Government is going to take credit for work and projects begun under the last regime, shouldn't it at some point also take responsibility for all that comes with running the country? For example, someone in the Town & Country Department  in the Ministry of Planning signed off approvals on and subsequently passed the inspection of a house that has since began to slide down the mountain, threatening the lives and the property of the people below. This person needs to be unmasked, exposed and fired for incompetence, and an investigation launched into every other project he has ever approved to see if his incompetence was isolated to this incident, or if he has infected the system. 

Many lives and limbs are now at risk, and it is my belief that this person has exposed the State to much litigation, and the State, through the relevant line Minister, should take steps to get in front of this thing before it snowballs into the Courts.

Does past corruption of the UNC Administration be placed at the feet of the PNM also? Or does this UNC led Partnership have questions to answer here? In her latest expose, Camini Marajh delved into the cesspool of corruption that is/was Hafeez Karamath and pulled out this: 

"In his attempt to retain an industry consultant to assist the State's bid process on the planned US$120 million desalination project, former permanent secretary and now Minister of Public Utilities in the new coalition government Emmanuel George, in 1998, wrote to a fictitious company, fronting as an affiliate of the United Nations, in the payroll of contractor Hafeez Karamath. Dr Joseph Ben-Dak, the man George identified as chairman of the New York, USA- based shell corporation, International Industrial Development Foundation (IIDF), was an old friend and business associate of the deceased contractor and the alleged mastermind of an elaborate bid-rigging scheme that stretched from 1996 through 1999 when the contract was awarded to a joint-venture company of Karamath and his US partner, Ionics Inc."

Now my questions may not be the same as most people's questions, but I would like to know the answers to the following:

How did the police, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the past and present Attorneys General miss this?

How did this man end up with a Ministerial position even though he either failed at or leveraged the last one for personal gain?

Who approved this?

Is this a clear example of incompetence requiring a slew of resignations and new investigations for charges to be laid?

She went on to state in the article - "It is not immediately clear how George came to dispatch formal communication to a non-existent entity at the height of the bidding process on the lucrative pay-only-for-water-you-take deal or why he accepted a response from another Ben-Dak business that was on paper only and signed by a different individual, named Mac Shaibe, another old friend of Ben-Dak."

There is no way Mr. George could not know that he was engaging in a corrupt enterprise, and he needs to be investigated for misbehavior in Public Office at the very least.

In a telephone interview with the Sunday Express on September 1, George defended the work of the nine-member bid evaluation committee, insisting the entire process was "open and transparent". And despite a torrent of criminal charges of fraud and bid-rigging brought against the state-hired consultant Daniel Hoffman, Ben-Dak, Karamath and a Karamath-owned company, the former top public servant insists: "As far as we were concerned in the ministry, there was no corruption in the desalination project, and I maintain that even now." According to Minister George: "We operated the whole thing completely above board. I don't know what they were doing." Did he know Ben-Dak and Hoffman were in the payroll of Mr Karamath? "No. How could I know that? I didn't know that at all."

"As far as we were concerned in the ministry, there was no corruption in the desalination project, and I maintain that even now."

Mr. George is being deliberately obtuse in his responses and his disingenuous responses may in fact be a play for the lesser charge of incompetence.

It is abundantly clear that he was in fact grossly incompetent  and needs to be removed from Office forthwith, but this should be the beginning of this particular hurricane, not its end.

The Attorney General has to act on this information that his own Office failed to uncover or risk being fired himself. This cuts to the heart of the competence of some very highly placed individuals, and forgeting the money trail for a moment, I would like to focus on the incompetence trail.

Who missed this and why?

Was the overlooking a deliberate play or a genuine mistake?

IF it was at all deliberate and can be proven to be so, then investigations have to be launched immediately  into all the people who had a hand in appointing this man as a Minister, and that trail runs hot all the way to the Prime Minister's desk.

There are others for whom the corruption issue will be the main focus and I encourage them, but the lack of due diligence in all these matters are appearing systemic, and the citizenry are being poorly served by people who are currently drawing salaries under false pretenses. If incompetence of the appointers was the sole reason for his appointment (all this baggage notwithstanding) and there was noting more sinister in the plot,  then all involved in said appointment are obviously not qualified for the Offices they now hold and need to be relieved of their responsibility.

One wonders If the current AG has any idea of the true responsibility he now holds, or if he is, as the Opposition alleges, only concerned with investigating and prosecuting members of the PNM. If that is the case then  he will eventually be seen to be biased and prejudiced and will not be long for that Office. No one is forgetting that he has not yet extradited Ishwar Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson to face their own music in the US, and this Government is walking a tight line and risks being seen as being on the side of the criminals.

From where I sit this cannot auger well for the Administration, and the Prime Minister herself has to speak out on this. She should be advised to shelve all the platitudes and come straight with the public on the issue, including who else besides this Minister will be removed from Office over this scandalous turn of events. Heads have to roll if any of our institutions are to be respected by the people, the foundation principle on which Law & Order is built. 

I keep saying again and again to this Government, you simply cannot have it both ways. You cannot be the anti-corruption kids while harboring your own corrupt close to your proverbial bosom.

Based on these new revelations, I feel compelled to send a message to Messrs Dookeran, Ramadhar, Mayers and Lee Yeun. I do not know who you are listening to, but rank and file COP supporters are not happy with the shenanigans of this Government. I am bombarded with emails and phone calls on a daily basis from people wanting to express their anger, and I wonder if they are having difficulty getting through to you. 

In the story of Robin Hood, the main character's family motto was 'rise and rise again until lambs become lions'. I find it possibly very apt for what the future may yet hold for the supporters of the Party.

Morality and Integrity in high Office are not campaign slogans, and ethics is not a play piece that can be horse traded away.

We ask that you stand for what you promised to stand for, what the Congress of the People stands for, or let us know if that has changed so we can begin our search anew.