…poodles in the ERC
Two bits of news collided in your Eyewitness’s head yesterday as he perused the dailies while trawling for fodder for his ruminations. One was about this NGO that’s going around the country spaying and neutering poodles and dogs. You know, ensuring the critters can’t do what they’re supposed to do, which comes naturally to them and is what they do best! – for free. The other was about the ERC announcing they were “dealing with instances of racism” that erupted during the post-elections PNC’s five-month war of attrition. Your Eyewitness wondered whether the NGO had ambled into an ERC meeting when they were constituted back in Feb 2018 and neutered and spayed them all!!
The context for your Eyewitness’s conjecture was the aforementioned “war of attrition” – of the PNC, in pursuit of their barefaced elections’ heist. And which provided the stimulus for the racist eruptions, which could’ve all be avoided if the ERC had done the job they were supposed to do when they were created as a constitutional body back in 2001. Every year without fail, once they were constituted, they would receive their funding to the tune of $250 million – but God knows what they did with the money. They had to’ve been neutered!!
Anyhow, after a hiatus of seven years, when they didn’t meet because the PNC refused to recognise them, they were relaunched in 2018 by the new PNC government. The Chairman was Bishop John Smith, an old chum of David Granger – which fact we know, since the latter was the chief guest at the former’s lavish 75th birthday bash at the Ramada, and confirmed the relationship. The said birthday bash took place on March 7th 2020, when Mingo had done the dirty with the SOPs and the world was denouncing Granger’s obscene rig.
Anyhow, back to the ERC’s abdication of their responsibilities, which led to the worst racial outbreak since the 1960s. In Oct 2018, PPP commissioners in GECOM, led by Robeson Benn, accused GECOM of racism in its hiring practices in its Secretariat, and hauled the Organisation before the ERC. GECOM’s Granger-hand-picked Chairman, James Patterson, airily dismissed the charge before and during the hearings. More specifically, when questioned why he chose Roxanne Myers over Vishnu Persaud for the post of DCEO, he said he found the latter “shifty” on his qualifications even though they’d never met!! He’s now been convicted of defamation!
The same stonewalling was done by GECOM’s Human Resource Manager Marcia Crawford, who refused to submit records of hiring practices and, along with Myers, refused to even appear before the investigative sub-committee.
Yet the ERC, under John Smith, exculpated GECOM of ethnic bias!!
And the rest is (sordid) history!!
…but still guilty
It’s your Eyewitness’s contention that history will judge – and not kindly – all those who participated in that shameful episode in Guyana’s history. And that’s the ironic fact – the PNC and GECOM’s history of fraud has now become part of the history of our country – like Jonestown. The law enforcement officials are to be complimented for dealing with the fraudsters in GECOM condignly – by bringing criminal charges against Mingo, Lowenfield, and their underlings.
What’s most incredible, however, is that individuals who’ve positioned themselves as potential leaders of this country – by seizing control of the PNC – can barefacedly defend the fraudsters as “honest and decent”. But, then, these PNC leaders had declared Granger to be infused with “honesty, integrity and dignity” – even as he pulled the strings from behind scenes to control all those GECOM officials as if they were mere puppets!
And in truth they were. If the Sanctimonious Gangster had an ounce of integrity, he would ask to be in the docks!
…in the AFC
Even when he became PM, Nagamootoo was so neutered he couldn’t even complain that he was never allowed to chair Cabinet, as promised in writing by Granger. Pathetic!!
Could Ramjattan say what role he’ll play in Parliament?
