I am responding to Mr. Ralph Ramkarran’s letter, `The stealing of books is a serious offence’ (SN, Oct 18.). The average mind in Guyana has to be amused at Mr. Ramkarran. This gentleman belongs to a ruling party of a country that Transparency International classifies as having the worst incidence of corruption in governmental structures for the English-speaking Caribbean and one of the worst in the world. No need to dwell on that but I am sure that given his position in the party he is rubbing shoulders with people who didn’t have time to steal books to educate themselves but stole money from the Treasury
I need to remind Mr. Ramkarran that at his party’s congress in 2008, the returning officer was Neermal Rekha. Now it wasn’t Frederick Kissoon, or Christopher Ram, or the PNC, or the TUC, or the AFC but the Guyana Revenue Authority that investigated Mr. Rekha in April 2004 and found that he signed more (emphasis mine) than fifty bogus duty-free letters in his capacity as Secretary to the Treasurer. I’m sure Mr. Ramkarran knows this because it did not occur 39 years ago but four and a half years and was headline news in the two independent dailies. Can Mr. Ramkarran tell me if he objects to sitting in the PPP with some names that are questionable like the politician Prime News accused of interfering with a female child, the mother of whom this columnist spoke with and who belongs to a PPP group on the lower East Coast?
Let’s move on. In the fifties, a young clerk at Bookers Stores stole a number of bicycle tires and was charged.
That Mr. Ramkarran can easily find in the newspapers for that period because I came across it in my research in the mid–eighties. That clerk is now one of the best legal luminaries the English-speaking Caribbean produced and practices law in Guyana. I don’t see Mr. Ramkarran writing about that. And he shouldn’t. That happened sixty years ago. Who cares? Maybe except Mr. Ramkarran, a contender for the presidential slot for the PPP in 2011.
Mr. Ramkarran has to know that as a public figure and one who casts blame on other public figures he must expect citizens to ask questions. Here are some questions for Mr. Ramkarran, none of which carry a value judgement. Can he say by what procedures his two sons were granted duty-free cars? I am asking for the particular position they were in at the time to entitle them to have duty-free letters.
My understanding is that the duty-free concessions were given to them as “remigrants” for studies abroad in Trinidad at the Hugh Wooding Law School.
If that is so, can Mr. Ramkarran tell me why there were letters in the papers by a number of law graduates who wrote to say that the concession were not granted to them because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not see Guyanese laws students in Trinidad as qualifying for remigrant status.
I may be wrong so I am asking Mr. Ramkarran to clarify this situation. I would ask Mr. Ramkarran to go into details. Secondly, was it under his chairmanship that Guyana Airways Corporation went bankrupt? Was there any investigation? Can Mr. Ramkarran say what percentage of state allocations his law firm, Cameron and Shepherd receives? Can he briefly tell us how many state institutions his firm represents apart from the two that we read about in the newspapers – Guysuco and UG? As Mr. Ramkarran can see no direct accusation was made against him. In closing let me say that Mr. Ramkarran is doing an excellent job of projecting himself as a suitable candidate to run Guyana in 2011. Just in case younger minds did not get it; I’m being stupendously cynical.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
