Dear Editor
To my utter amazement, I read this week that a person no other than Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo himself has promised to set up anti-corruption institutions if the PPP gets back in office.
Several things are happening here. First Mr. Jagdeo is clearly playing to the gallery as he is trying to assure the West, supporters, the middle and the business class that he and the PPP will finally tackle corruption once and for all. Never mind the fact that every single complaint about corruption from every single facet of society prior to 2015 was met with political disdain from the PPP, never official denials, just disdain and dismissals.
Never mind that the PPP – to this day – cannot explain the spectacular wealth that many of its ministers and high officials accumulated in a very short space of time and the lack of value for money from several projects including, of course, the Skeldon Estate and Fibre Optic cable project.

But I blame the coalition, for as we say in Guyanese parlance the “spounce” Mr. Jagdeo now possesses is because of its lackluster approach to investigating the vast amount of theft, graft and nepotism that were the hall marks of the PPP, especially during the time of Jagdeo. Many of those who stole from the public purse should be in jail. Today they walk freely, heads held high and are in turn accusing the coalition of being even more corrupt than the 23 years in office. Good heavens. How can this be?

Editor, Jagdeo is so hell bent on getting back into power to control the wealth and levers of state that he is not even allowing Irfaan Ali, the presidential candidate, to speak on these issues, perhaps maybe because Mr. Ali himself is before the courts on corruption-related charges. Mr. Jagdeo is desperate for power which is his automatic protection, given his own unlawful behaviour, so much so that he and his party have spent millions of US dollars to hire an American propaganda firm to help clean up their image, while attacking that of their opponent. The fact is that the PPP, given their record under Jagdeo, is absolutely no good for Guyana. And the fact is that the job of that propaganda firm is to create fake news, attack and assassinate persons’ characters, spy and even hack into the people’s personal space to generate an unfavourable imagine of the opponent.

At this stage, only time will tell if this administration’s failure to put ex PPP ‘big wigs’ behind bars for corruption will come back to bite those in power now, in their political derrieres. As I rest my case, I remain astonished about the quietude from those running the country now. Not a word of condemnation has come from State House, Congress Place in Sophia, and Office of the President, the PM’s office. Recently I read that former PPP minister, Priya Manickchand, and PPP stooge, Romel Roopnarine, were on facebook encouraging and making racist statements to the effect that the Berbice criminals were killed because they were Indians. There has been nothing from the government, Ministry Social Cohesion or the Ethnic Relations Commission. This is the reason why Mr. Jagdeo has the gall and gumption to say he will establish institutions to deal with corruption when corruption is the PPP’s mantra.

Regards
Winston Mars