Last month, Professor Clive Thomas achieved 90 years. As part of this milestone, UG’s Faculty of Economics hosted a panel discussion. I haven’t got access to the presentation of the other panelists only that of Nigel Westmaas. I read his delivery because it was posted on Facebook.
The speech was 2,700 words. I will warn readers that if you are faint-hearted do not read Westmaas’s output. It is an incredible piece of immoral intellectualism.
Westmaas’ presentation portrays an incredibly barefaced outlook that is ugly, vulgar and dangerous. If you cannot locate Westmaas’s sickening distortion of history, please contact me at 614-5927 and fredkissoon@yahoo.com.
Westmass began his presentation with these words: “My focus today is on the economist as humanist, as public intellectual, and as political activist. I want to reflect not only on the importance of Clive Thomas’ intellectual and economic output over time, but on the concurrent deeper moral and political orientation that has guided his work for more than five – I daresay six decades.”
Westmaas spent 2,700 words tracing the politics and scholarship of Thomas over 60 years. He looked at the very beginning of Thomas’ academic life and how such a life was fused with politics.
He traveled over the long years of Thomas’ political sojourn, examining his contributions to political organisations and trade unions. Here are the final words of Westmaas as he ends his presentation: “His body of work and his scholar activism continue to challenge us to think critically about development, democracy, and the responsibilities of intellectual life.”
If you come from another planet and you soaked in Westmaas’ presentation, you would never believe that on the canvas on Thomas you can find the following imprints:
1- Merge his party with the PNC that refused up to this day to apologise for atrocities committing on Thomas, himself, the WPA and Guyana as a nation
2- Became the Economic Advisor to President David Granger in the APNU+AFC government from 2015-2020
3- Became the head of Guyana’s sugar industry in the APNU+AFC regime
4- Became the heads of the State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA)
5- Became embroiled in the racially oriented direction of WPA since 2015
The reader of Westmaas’ offering has to be stunned by these omissions. Westmaas was so barefaced that there is not even one word in reference to the powerful figure Thomas was in the APNU+AFC government.
At the end of reading this brutal insult to Guyanese history, the reader has to ask what the reason was for cutting out five years of politics in Thomas life in which he became a power-wielder in the state.
It was under Clive Thomas’ chairmanship of GuySuCo that 7,000 sugar workers were instantly dismissed. Three very intimate comrades of Thomas in the WPA wrote a terrible condemnation of his attitude to the sugar workers – Andaiye, Moses Bhagwan and Eusi Kwayana. In condemning Thomas, they severely damaged his legacy which Westmaas shamelessly overlooked.
I quote from the condemnation of the three: “As foundation members of the WPA, we have watched from the sidelines and with growing unease as the government committed error after error. We were shocked beyond belief recently when severance notices were handed out to hundreds of sugar workers at the start of the Christmas season, without a plan regarding the future of the workers, their families, their communities, and the wider economy of the country.
“This disastrous decision cannot be explained away with reference to inexperience. It is callous, foolish, ill-advised and economically unfeasible. The economy of Guyana has revolved around sugar since 1815. As a country we can do better. The certainty that we could do better was the reason for the formation of the Working Peoples Alliance in 1974, and to see a government which includes the WPA falter on the most basic of ideals, gives us cause to pause and question.”
Clive Thomas chose not to apologise for what he did as GuySuCo chairman but in fact was abusive to his three WPA comrades. This is what the Stabroek News wrote about the fallout between the three WPA stalwarts and Thomas: “Their criticisms will be seen as even more damaging to the WPA whose co-leader Dr Clive Thomas is the current Chairman of GuySuCo and is clearly backing the retrenchments.”
Clive Thomas became intoxicated with the modicum of power that the PNC handed in 2015 and so smitten by power, he destroyed his legacy. His lifelong friend, Dr. Maurice Odle, who spent QC days with Thomas and remained his closest political comrade right up to their time in government in 2015, wrote about him in devastating terms. Thomas, up to last year, was involved in racially charged politics. He is no hero but a political lowlife.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.