THE determination to eject the destructive PNC from the seat of government gave rise to a national avalanche that eventually swept the PNC out of the corridors of power and installed, for the first time in decades, a constitutionally-elected Government in October of 1992. This was indeed the Dawn of a New Era, and a new broom that gradually and miraculously swept away the malaise and apathy to transform Guyana into an unparalleled dynamic of social development and economic growth, to the extent where this country is now being internationally recognised as a middle-income economy. However, Guyana’s freedom and its developmental paradigm are under threat once again by the very people who took Guyana and Guyanese to subterranean levels of international growth indices before a PPP/C Government under the guidance of this country’s foremost freedom fighter and the Father of the Nation, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, and successive PPP/C presidents, especially the “Architect of Modern Guyana” and crafter of The Poverty Reduction Strategy, the National Development Strategy, the LCDS, et al, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, created synergies to propel Guyana’s socio-economic dynamics toward fructification of all that PPP/C founding father, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, had envisioned for this nation.
Governing the nation during the last two decades and creating a growth pattern with a consistent upward trajectory has not been an easy proposition for the PPP/C because the PNC, even in its new avatar of APNU and its ally the AFC has had a continuum of destructive actions that caused much angst and retrogression in the fortunes of this nation, with many major developmental and job and wealth-creational initiatives being stymied and/or stopped cold by the combined Opposition.
But the country descended into a new low with the new configuration in the National Assembly post elections 2011, which gave the combined Opposition a majority of one seat, acquired with six votes, which allowed the PNC, conjoined with the AFC, to rear its venomous head to strike once again into the heart of the nation.
Their electioneering ploys and gerrymandering are damning them for rank hypocrites, because all they are promising the electorate run counter to their intra/extra parliamentary utterances and actions during the 10th Parliament, which their no-confidence motion threatened to bring to an immediate halt, thus creating chaos and catalysing anarchy in the country.
There were many instances where they were directly responsible for anti-developmental, anti-people consequences that negatively impacted the upward trajectory of Guyana’s social development and economic growth – too numerous to detail herein; but we will deal with the AML/CFT bill.
Non-compliance with FATF regulations regarding countering of money laundering and terrorism in the world would visit recalcitrant nation states with such punitive ‘blacklisting’ that would take them into semblances of Guyana under PNC administration. Unfortunately for Guyana, this nation is being held to ransom by a vengeful combined Opposition, which refused to support the vital passage of the Anti–Money Laundering and Countering the financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill.
Their power-drunk and vengeful grandstanding had reached a level where their conditions for support of this vital bill put this nation between the devil and the deep blue sea – that the Government accepted their recommendations for amendments, which would have reverted Guyana to the days of the Draconian rule of the PNC; or else non-support of the bill with a consequential blacklisting by FATF, which will transpose this nation again to a socio-economic landscape and ethos of want, hunger and hopelessness.
The amendment the Opposition proposed sought to give Police and customs officers the power to seize currency of over $2M (US$10,000) in cash, cheques or value, such as money orders, jewellery, gold, bills of exchange, negotiable instruments, precious metals and gems, etcetera and arrest persons if it is suspected that it is the proceeds of money laundering.
These officers would also be vested with the powers to invade homes and business places, at any hour, to ransack private spaces for what would then be contraband; as in the good old days of yore under PNC administration, when almost every householder became a criminal under PNC’s Draconian rule. One letter-writer to this newspaper, Roshan Khan recalled those days of horror thus: “This is madness, as prohibition will cause wholesale smuggling of currencies out of Guyana, due to the reality that people will not have faith in the country and economy, and will wonder if next time the APNU might want to seize any money anywhere. The people of Guyana cannot forget the whole banning of food items, particularly flour and the like, which led to an amazing growth of illegal wealth by the smugglers, and the export of cash by every and any means.“I ask the people of this country if they recall the days when Guyanese under the Burnhamite PNC could not pass the airport with anything more than US$25. The time when fingers were prodded into peoples anuses and even female vaginas. Yes, youths who do not know, under the Burnhamite PNC this happened, and many were imprisoned, as some had to get money out for medicine, a gallon of paint, some building material. “One could not go on a holiday with anything of value, not even a piece of jewellery except the married ring, and that had to be small. Jewels and monies that were seized were used as bribe in order not to be charged. In the search room people will tell the police or customs officials to keep the money and gold…..it was truly a shameful era. “And many were bribed to get money out, and others with tins of smuggled sardines or corn beef, or a pound of flour, onions or garlic for Government officials’ assistance. During this time Guyana broke, fell on its knees as Guyana became a basket case and the mockery state in the Caribbean. It was a time when women had to sell their bodies in Suriname and Trinidad to bring food stuff to sell in Guyana’s market and feed the nation. Guyanese were in shame everywhere we went. Many slept at airports and wharves.” Then also the question of the integrity of mandated officers is in doubt, and numerous incidents abound – of monies, jewellery and other items, such drugs seized by law enforcement and customs officers with only partial, or in some instances non-delivery of these items to designated authorities; the time-consuming, frustrating, expensive process of recovery, most often through the courts by the legitimate owner and/or legal authority will frustrate the process into extinction. Their demands also did not take into consideration the dangers posed to home owners and private entrepreneurs, and among the plethora of instances when bandits pretending to represent a legal entity forced entry into premises then proceeded to rob, injure and even kill their victims. Here one can recall the brutal death of Frank Persaud of Bel Air, who was forced to open his warehouse to bandits posing as Customs officers, only to be killed and robbed. The implications of the Opposition’s demands to the safety and wellbeing of Guyanese citizens are too horrendous to contemplate. Alternatively, Opposition’s non-support of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Bill would have meant blacklisting by FATF, which consequences, inter alia: developmental and charitable loans and grants drying up; Banking internationally will be impossible; money transfers will freeze; many will lose jobs, as industries will close or minimise operations, among other consequences no less deleterious to the national economy and Guyanese welfare and wellbeing. The combined Parliamentary Opposition’s grandstanding and blackmailing for irrational demands to be met have stymied the passage of the amended Bill which, prior to the prorogation edict, sat unaddressed, because of Opposition filibustering in a Special Parliamentary Select Committee.
Thanks to the trust of international financial institutions in the PPP/C Government and the brilliant advocacy of Anil Nandlall and Dr. Ashni Singh, Guyana has been given a temporary reprieve by FATF; albeit there are still negative fallouts from the non-passage bill.
So the tall claims by the Opposition’s empty promises to the electorate hallmark their propensity for hypocrisy, because these are mere opportunistic ‘electioneering gimmicks’ and must be recognised as such by the people.