Can Mr. Granger say how much the PNC had paid the State for land it is now selling for 75M?

THE APNU=PNC leadership have never missed an opportunity to lecture Guyanese on the virtues of transparency and accountability; hence, Old Kai is expecting that they will be readily forthcoming on exactly how they acquired the land they are now moving to sell a local company for a reported sum of $75M.I am also interested to know exactly how much they paid for this portion of land at the time of acquisition to the State of Guyana. Surely, we would not expect that this portion of land was acquired free of cost as this would be tantamount to defrauding the Guyanese people.

The secrecy surrounding efforts by the PNC leadership to sell the portion of land takes on greater meaning when one takes into consideration a statement attributed to no less than Mr. David Granger himself. An online news site quoted him as saying, “I was not involved in any negotiations. All matters of this nature are authorised and discussed by Central Exec (Central Executive Committee). It was never personal.”

The glaring contradiction here is Mr. Granger saying he was in no way involved in these negotiations but then admitting that it was dealt with at the level of the Central Executive Committee of his party. Is he not a member of the Central Executive? How can any leader of a party not be a member of the Central Executive? If this is what he is implying, he needs to clarify.

Until such time, Old Kai will logically assume that he is a member of the leadership body and by his own admission; these negotiations were discussed at the level of the central executive. So how can he now say he was not part of the negotiations or imply that he is not aware of what is unfolding before his very eyes?

Even if we were to go along with the explanation offered by the Opposition Leader that “I was not involved in these negotiations…(it was the) Central Exec.,” it poses another quandary. Who exactly is in charge of the PNC = APNU, if by his own admission Mr. Granger is not involved or unaware of these major undertakings inside the party we are publicly informed that he leads?

In any event, it speaks to weak leadership. One cannot be the leader of a political party wanting to take on the responsibilities of Government but refuse to get involved in such a major undertaking of your party. A responsible leader would want to ensure that the party gets value for money in the disposal of its assets. And if in the event, Mr. Granger was indeed part of the negotiation process at the level of the Central Committee then it would speak to dishonest leadership.

Old Kai is at a loss as to why the Opposition leader would willingly place himself in such a position. Was there really a need for him to make such a contradictory statement? What it does is that it opens up more room for suspicion. It gives credence to the concerns by those inside the party who claimed that the agreement was being done in secrecy by a small elite group with vested interests.

The Opposition leader’s image has taken a beating more so of recent, following several contradictory statements and u-turns on stated policies. Having set up the APNU which consists of over 90% PNC officials, the aim was to give the impression that they were serious about national unity.
This was subsequently undermined by a recent statement of the Opposition Leader articulating a “jook fuh jook” perspective on matters of foreign policy. It did not help when, on one hand they stated they were not in favour of closing the sugar industry but later publicly called for the lands to be converted to fish ponds.
Then Mr. Granger had personally addressed the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association luncheon prior to the 2011 election, where he pledged his support to the business community only for him as Opposition Leader staunchly refuse to support the AML/CFT amendment bill in the National Assembly, which has resulted in the business community already feeling the effects with the possibility of full international blacklisting looming ahead.

He had on more than one occasion publicly claim to be supportive of Amerindians, only to have one of his MP’s refer to Region 9 as a ‘backward place’ and followed this up with slashing of the entire Amerindian Development Fund in the 2014 budget. Mr. Granger had projected himself as a paragon of virtue and serious about fighting corruption in the public sector only for him to turn around and attack President Donald Ramotar’s proposal to increase the use of integrity testing.

There was talk of being concerned about creating employment only to witness efforts in the National Assembly to stymie or kill several major projects which would together have created thousands of jobs both directly and indirectly. We also heard about the plight of workers attached to the Guyana Energy Agency who, because of the Opposition cuts to their budget, might soon face the breadline as was the case with some employed at other state agencies. Then there was the much touted concern for our youths and education, only to see an about turn with the Opposition voting unanimously to cut Government funding for University of Guyana students to access loans to pursue tertiary education.

Old Kai can go on and on but I will pause here for the moment and await the answers to my earlier questions from the Opposition Leader.