— VP Jagdeo affirms

IN defending his integrity amidst allegations of his involvement in corrupt practices, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo has said that he is capable of accounting for his earnings and every asset within his possession.

Leveraging an interview conducted by a journalist from United States-based Vice News with Vice-President Jagdeo, Leader of the People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R), Aubrey Norton, called on the government official to disclose his earnings and assets.

This was asked of the Vice-President even after he defended questions from the Vice News journalist about his affiliation with a person named Su, who allegedly works as a conduit between him and Chinese companies as it regards infrastructural projects.

“If he wants to disprove the allegation, then he can make these bank accounts that he is talking about open to the public,” Norton was reported as saying on Tuesday.

In a direct response to the leader of the PNC/R, Vice-President Jagdeo, during a press briefing on Tuesday evening, said: “I will excuse his unfamiliarity with the law… I will excuse his ignorance of the law.”

The law he was referring to is the Integrity Commission Act, which stipulates that every person in public life must submit a declaration of their finances on or before June 30, every year.

“From 1999-2015 [and even after], the government and officials [of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic] have submitted, every year, their statements of income and assets to the Integrity Commission,” Vice-President Jagdeo related.

Should the assets of a public official far exceed his/her income, it could trigger an investigation and there could even be a penalty of a year imprisonment for false or no declaration.

Unlike successive People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) governments, Vice-President Jagdeo said officials of the former A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) administration did not submit statements to the Integrity Commission.

He described the Coalition’s record in this regard as sordid and maintained that PPP/C officials have submitted their statements consistently and in accordance with the law.

Although noting that he consistently submits his statements to the Integrity Commission, the Vice-President went a step further to say that he has two local bank accounts and documents to justify his acquisition of assets.

“My earnings are accounted for whether it comes from government pension, income from rental… the statements are with the bank… all of my assets have gone through the banking system,” Vice-President Jagdeo related.

The senior government official said he does not possess a foreign bank account, but had owned an apartment in New York, which he sold after maintenance of the property became a liability.

This apartment, he said, was acquired in 2013 for his convenience during his time out of office, when he would have to intransit in America on his way to other countries for various projects.

The Vice-President said confidently that he has a clean slate, and this was proven even during the period when the Coalition administration was in office, as they had launched investigations into his bank accounts and assets but found nothing.

“The PPP/C was subjected to SARA and SOCU, and the worst they could find is that I bought the land at lower than market price… I said already that the price was higher than the market value for land,” Jagdeo related.

Even so, the Vice-President maintained that any allegation of corruption could be investigated by the Guyana Police Force (GPF).

Responding to the matter of Su and allegations of taking bribe from contractors, Vice-President Jagdeo said: “Those things are not true… they would never find anyone who can say they have given me a bribe directly or indirectly. I never took a bribe.”

He said confidently that there could be no evidence of him receiving a bribe because it never happened.