Singing…
…for his supper
Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan was caught by the media crowd on the sidelines of a “drug observatories” seminar that included the US Embassy and the OAS. Big timers!! Unfortunately, on security matters all, Ramjattan could do was moan and groan about “the challenges” he’s facing with the porous borders and all. Unfortunately none of the reporters asked him about the National Anti-Narcotics Agency (NANA) he’d launched with great fanfare back in December 2016 which, he assured us, would solve the problem. Maybe he was thinking about his grandfather, who’s called “NANA” by Indian Guyanese!!
More germanely, they also didn’t ask him about his announcement two months before. Quoting from the Chronic (controlled by a “senior AFC Minister, we now know!) lest your scrupulously fair Eyewitness be accused of fabricating – fresh back from a “Caribbean-United States (US) Security Cooperation dialogue held at the Washington State Department in Washington DC, he (Ramjattan) presented Guyana’s ‘border security’ issues as a major concern, especially with the high prevalence of drug and gun-related crimes…near Brazil.”
“He asked the US State Department for help through providing airplane surveillance or drones that could go 100 miles and back with its location being at a sub-command centre likely to be installed at Lethem…” The Americans, Ramjattan declared, “made a commitment that yes, there will be assistance in that regard.” At the time, your Eyewitness was quite sceptical (to say the least!!) about the US sending down one of these drones that cost at least US$12 million a pop – and run up flight expenses of US$5000/per hour!!
But with US Embassy personnel in attendance, wasn’t this an opportune time to grill Ramjattan as to why the US promise hadn’t been kept?? The converse – that there wasn’t any such promise in the first place – surely couldn’t possibly be the case with such a paragon of probity as Ramjattan!! Naaah…the reporters didn’t ask him because they were probably worried he’s give his usual snarling yelp to “hard” questions: “haul yuh ass!!”
Anyhow, the softball question lobbed about his views on the seawall killings did draw a weird answer –Ramjattan affirmed his faith in the Police’s story because – he explained – the Police have to be assumed innocent! So why did he warn about “corrupt Cops” on so many occasions? Shouldn’t he have been a tad more circumspect than his carte blanche imprimatur??
The point of the matter is Ramjattan’s absolutely clueless about how to assert any sort of authority of both the crime fighting unit or over policies guiding them. The President has taken this portfolio over to the OP in everything but name.
Ramjattan’s just singing for his supper!! And is off key!!
…for AFC’s survival
Another softball lobbed to Ramjattan – and the answer also given prominence in the Chronic – was that the AFC will be going into the Local Government Election (LGE) joined to the hip with APNU!! Didn’t your Eyewitness say this will be the case when Trotman suggested his party will be holding some kind of conclave to make that decision?? Where’s the conclave? What’s there to decide, between “dead meat” and “life support”?? And the latter is what Ramjattan and the AFC are desperately praying for right now!!
There’s no way in hell the AFC are going to expose the fact they’re naked of any possible support base – which is what going alone at the LGE would do!! But the 64-million-dollar question shouldn’t have been treated lightly as Ramjattan did: who exactly will be the candidates from each “partner”? For sure, the AFC isn’t getting any 40 per cent cut of the offices!!
They should surely be worried they won’t die from the thousand cuts the PNC will be inflicting on them as they jettison ‘dead meat”!!
…and paying through the nose
The parents of Mae’s students are whining about the 42 per cent tuition hike!! Hey, that’s par for the course when you try to buy “class” isn’t it?
Try shopping at Oscar de la Renta in NYC!!
