Dear Editor,

THE puzzle of the former Office of the President (now Ministry of the Presidency) Permanent Secretary is being unravelled. This is the same individual I was practically begging for my money, owed to me by the PPP Civic Administration for 2015 General Elections TV programmes aired on DTV8 in New Amsterdam; money amounting to more than $1.5M owed to both me and DTV-8, none of which has been paid to date.But it should be noted that the PPP paid $100,000 to me last November, and said that was all they could afford at the time.
Also, one of my guests, Mr Mahender Sharma, after seeing in the media the debacle I created about the non-payment of my money, did the noble thing and paid both me and DTV-8 for two programmes on which he appeared. We were most grateful.

Now, only if other guests could follow suit….

But let’s get back to the now- fired Permanent Secretary. Last August, he and I were engaged in an exchange on social media chat. I practically begged the man to enquire about our invoices for those election programmes, ‘IN DEPTH’, aired on DTV-8 from January to May 2015. Both DTV-8 and I continued sending our invoices to the former PS at the Office of the President in Georgetown; tapes too!

Now, being the only official of the former PPP Administration still employed (or had been) under this new Administration, and seeing him as a person of hope to provide some answers about our payments, I begged him to provide some answers.

He quickly told me that he would most certainly not approach Minister Harmon. “You want me lose my job?” he said to me via FB chat.

He asked me to get in touch with Zulfikar Mustapha for answers, and not him. He said there was nothing he could do, and that there were no invoices at the MoP.

HOW??? Where were all the invoices we kept sending? If he wasn’t dealing with them — and during the election time we were told he was looking at the invoices — then where are the invoices??

When he told me he would not approach Harmon about honouring those payments, he said he could only advise me to take a lawyer against the current administration.

I just want to say that this individual is most uncouth; and God forgive me, but whatever he is going through at the moment, —— well, I say no more.

He was afraid of losing his job to just go and ask Mr Harmon about our payments. Well, nearly a year later, look what eventually happened. DTV-8 and I will continue to press Freedom House for our payments.

It is being peddled that I was VOLUNTEERING my services! Hogwash! That was never the intention, and neither was the TV station, for whom I feel extremely bad, since I had organized with DTV-8, good friends of mine, to accommodate and broadcast those programmes.

Not fair, PPP! I hope the truth about the ex-PS comes out.

Yours sincerely,

LEON SUSERAN