IT is astounding to read about allegations and claims that the opposition makes and to see what lengths they would go to try to put things in a bad light and sway the population. With elections coming up I guess we should expect a lot more of the same antics.
I refer to the latest episode with the Alliance For Change (AFC) where the Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan alleged that the Hansard was tampered with, claiming that the Housing Minister said ‘we have spent it already’ instead of ‘we are ready’ the latter of which was proved to be what the Minister really said on the matter.
This has caused Ramjattan to apologise to the National Assembly after the Hansard and the audio tapes were compared and found to be identical. Ramjattan has shown us all that he is an irresponsible politician who has once again put his foot in his mouth because only recently the Finance Minister proved him wrong in his utterances relating to the cost for overseas travel of the President which the AFC pegged at $2B while it was clarified that the cost of travel for the entire Cabinet was $200M.
It makes us all wonder where Ramjattan gets his information from to jump to these asinine conclusions. This is yet another example of the misinformation being peddled under the guise of the AFC to try to sway the people.
What is also embarrassing and shows the total lack of responsibility and journalism ethics is the fact that the Kaieteur News did not seek to clarify and corroborate the story; instead it just published it based on hearsay. Having to apologise for printing such a story shows the haphazard way in which the newspaper operates and its one-sidedness and that it does indeed have an agenda which it is pushing through whatever means available to it.
It would have made sense for the newspaper to check with the Speaker of the National Assembly before publishing the story, instead it felt that this was a sensational piece of juicy gossip which the public will willingly gobble up and did not waste any time in bothering to confirm whether the information it received was true or not.
The apologies are piling up for this newspaper and people would lose respect and confidence in the newspaper as it continues to dash its credibility to pieces.