LATE in my term as a prefect at Queen’s College, I remember one of our most dedicated prefects coming up to me and saying: “Well, I guess it’s either me or you for the Ashni Singh Award!”

This award, granted to the best prefect, hadn’t really crossed my mind up until that point, but at once I felt excited. We had all been told so many stories about how forceful and dedicated he was as Head Prefect, and I was really happy at least someone thought I could stand in his shoes. Fast forward to 2018, and pictures of the former Minister of Finance in chains are plastered all over newspapers and social media.

I don’t want to judge Singh until he has had a fair trial, and the facts are put out in the public domain for all to assess, because I would hope to receive the same courtesy if charged and proven innocent. But given that his alleged crime is corruption, and that he has been perceived by generations of QC students as a beacon of dedication to the public good, I can’t hide that I am bitterly disappointed. I won the Ashni Singh Award all those years ago, and now I don’t even know what it means.

Let us be fair to Singh, and assume for now that he was not involved in any illicit dealings. But what is still just so worrying is that now the public has reason to look closely at the many deals he must have been involved in throughout his time as Finance Minister. Now we must reasonably ask ourselves whether, instead of this acclaimed “bright boy” turning his many talents to serving his country, he was putting those talents toward stealing from his fellow Guyanese. His actions have totally undermined public trust in our most senior, most qualified public officials.

Couldn’t he have at least advocated the type of transparency that would ensure all Guyanese understood why he sold government lands at heavily undervalued prices? If he was going to sell our property at a $200M discount (as in one of the charges), there needed to be a clear, public justification. I can’t really think what that justification would be, but maybe there are reasons to discount land by what amounts to almost 60 per cent of the valuation.

Did the land develop a sinkhole? Was there a toxic chemical spill there? We owe the former minister the chance to clarify what happened.

But this all reminds me somehow of Elton Wray, who was shot and killed during the attempted robbery of Republic Bank, and who had received a government scholarship to study in China. It’s like we invested so much time, capital and hope in these sons of our soil, and instead of putting that to good use, they have turned to the lowest forms of profiteering.

Perhaps this isn’t the case with Singh, but if it turns out that it is, Guyanese must surely ask whether the reason Guyana failed to pass an anti-money laundering bill and ended up internationally blacklisted was because such a bill was inconvenient for his purposes.
It, even further, raises the question as to whether these types of selfish actions are the real reason Guyana has never reached its potential. Must we now doubt that many of the “bright boys” and “bright girls” we so uplift have been the true cause of our country’s stagnation? Must we now doubt that some of the pillars of dedication to the public service have instead been nothing but cracks, into which have fallen our nation’s many resources?
Look back at the many failed projects the Guyanese government has attempted over the years, and ask yourself whether high-level corruption may be the real reason for their frustrating and devastating falls.

I have singled Singh out because, as a former Head Prefect myself, I recognise that an outsize burden of responsibility falls at his feet, and that it is this alleged dereliction of duty that most frustrates the Queen’s College family. The students of our great school look up to their prefects, and especially their Head Prefects, as examples. I think back now on the impressionable first formers, who most need role models, and part of me desperately hopes Singh will be acquitted of all charges.

Unlike Elton Wray, who has passed on, Singh, fortunately, has a good opportunity to explain himself. And so, now we wait.