Dear Editor,
With the latest move by President Bharrat Jagdeo to appoint Mr Irfan Ally as Minister of Housing and Works to replace Mr Harry Narine Nawbatt, who is going to take up an appointment as the Guyana Ambassador to Brazil, the writing is clearly on the wall for PPP stalwart Mr Moses Nagamootoo, that he is not needed in the Jagdeo administration. Both Ally and Nagamootoo are Members of Parliament in the PPP/C government.
When President Jagdeo won the 2006 general election, Nagamootoo was not given a ministerial post. He was made a Member of Parliament. When Minister of Foreign Affairs Rudy Insanally resigned, Ms Carolyn Rodrigues, the Minister of Amerindian Affairs was made Minister of Foreign Affairs. Even when Carolyn Rodrigues moved to the foreign ministry Moses Nagamootoo was not even considered for the post of Minister of Amerindian Affairs. That went to Ms Pauline Sukhai, a Parliamentary Secretary in the PPP/C government. And then Nagamootoo was again by-passed for the ministerial post of Minister of Housing and Water, which has gone to a younger member, Irfan Ally.
Moses Nagamootoo seemed to make a comeback in the PPP when he was elected to the Central Committee, but he was not elected to the Executive Committee from which the 2011 presidential candidate will come.
The latest move by the party has signalled the end of a top post for Moses Nagamootoo in the PPP/C government. Nagamootoo is sixty years old and definitely out as the presidential candidate for 2011 election. By time the election after that comes in 2016, Nagamootoo will be in his seventies, and too old to run for the presidency.
Moses Nagamootoo has been treated badly by the PPP since the death of Dr Jagan. He has been over forty years in the party, struggling side by side with Dr Cheddi Jagan fighting the Burnham and Hoyte administrations for free and fair elections. He felt the wrath of the PNC but never gave up. To see someone like him treated so badly by the Jagdeo administration brings sadness to many Nagamootoo and PPP supporters. Probably he is paying for his sins for walking away from the PPP and telling them he “don with you all,” and because he is a friend of Khemraj Ramjattan and Freddie Kissoon who are critics of the PPP/C government.
Yours faithfully,
Baldeo Persaud
