-So is it really, really race?
My “Donor Dollars for the campaign” item is purely fictional. However, knowledgeable friends tell me that there are elements of factual truth in this imagined story. Evidence is available to illustrate that these things do occur in Third World, Fourth World and Fifth World countries. The next few paragraphs contain the report, the story. Which may or may not happen in our own big, beautiful but blighted and corrupted land.
On the vast, sun-kissed island-kleptocracy of Sealandia in the Pacific, there was a government whose Ministers had actually grown tried of representing and serving the society’s hard-pressed citizens. The same citizens who had voted them into office on three consecutive occasions. After all the voters were promised that the discrimination, the corruption and the kleptomania which characterized previous other governments would be a thing of that inglorious past. National thievery, the new government had pledged, would be wiped out, banished from public life by public officials.
Soon however, power corrupted certain officials absolutely. And it had all started within Sealandia’s Ruling Party. Some two years before the country’s last general elections, that Party’s financial strategist called in selected comrades to share his ideas for “fund-raising” and campaign Donors and Donation – targets. That was not actually the start of the kleptomania. It was crucially – the development of a strategy to tap into the resources “available” from International Donor Agencies! To be cleverly diverted to the coffers of Sealandia’s Ruling Party. Eventually, lots of that loot was to be used to fund Sealandia’s Ruling Party’s Election campaign. Which, of course, they won.
Can’t stop taking – nor giving
This was the mother of all thievery! After, and besides the “usual” takings and contributions from local sympathizers and other corrupt friends, the party found methods to access financing from Donor Agencies and the world’s Multilateral Financial Institutions. Though proxies and willing pals.
I once journeyed to Sealandia to interview the State’s empowerment Minister to find out why smaller contractors were not getting any significant national projects funded by the overseas donor agencies.
That’s because I wanted to learn a little from the Minister so that the “small” contractors of my own Guyana won’t suffer like Sealandia’s “small men”. To my surprise the Minister explained that the Donor Agencies Projects required/demanded companies which had the expertise and equipment on hand to successfully execute the projects “to their standards”. Only the approved, selected few qualified! How was the smaller folks ever to “qualify” I wondered.
Anyhow Sealandia’s friendly-to-the-government contractors won the foreign-funder Bids and duly, secretly, contributed “commissions” to the ruling party. At least five of Sealandia’s big contractors keep contributing to the ruling party’s treasury. Stealing with class! Known to the court of Public Opinion but nothing could be proved in a court of Law.
Once a drunkened contractor blurted out his vexation that a party official was demanding “too much”. The guests at the social occasion included diplomats and donor agency heads. They heard for themselves. Kleptomania with class! Their funds were finding their way to finance one Party’s, members and campaigns. Should they tell their governments to stop the aid, the grants, and the loans?
However, at their headquarters and in Sealandia the donors decided not to withdraw aid and donor dollars from Sealandia. That would hurt the poor Sealandians, hopefully the targeted beneficiaries. This humanitarian decision is just what Sealandia’s rulers bargained on. Skilfully, foreign money is still finding its way into the ruling party’s vaults. What should or could the people of Sealandia do? I’m so pleased that that type of corruption does not occur here.
Tell me it’s not really “race”
Am I so terribly naïve in my mid-60s? I was moved to the soul after reading a letter last week. It was written by the mother of the University of Guyana’s top student for 2009. This pain-filled mother’s brilliant daughter has not been able to land a job in Guyana one year after graduation.
The mother’s public letter detailed her girl’s outstanding achievements at UG and the heart-rending search for a job relevant to her International Relations qualifications. Is the young Guyanese over-qualified? Did she ask for too much reward? There was one subtle indication that here race (?); “background” thwarted her job-hunting.
As in the case of Ms G. Whyte-Nedd I hesitate to accuse government agencies of Racism!
Must I accept that government agencies accept or reject accomplished applicants based on their race? Why would they do that? Even assuming that there is (institutionalized) racism, won’t it be good to “make a show” and give such a young scholar a job? If even for gloss? Please explain to me somebody: is racism really practiced here “officially”? Nothing of the sort affects me, so…
Ponder…
*1) For years I’ve advocated the seemingly extreme penalty: When a mini-bus or taxi is found speeding or overloaded, charge all passengers too over age 14!
*2) A foremost manifestation of Guyana’s virtual stagnation is the reality of blackouts – the product of unreliable power supply. For one full generation of (young) Guyanese.
No government, since the Burnham regime, had ever overcome the blight.
*3) In his Sunday Stabroek Business page column Christopher Ram asks: “See why people want to become President?” I’ve been using that for weeks in this column! So I’m willing to settle out of court, over this, Christopher…
*4) Buy my vote for 2011! Raise National Old Age Pension to $10,000.00 minimum. Heaven knows even that is low – but needed.
*5) Not a 10% or 15% salary increase for public servants by year-end? Only 7%? Naughty! Remember your elections next year…
‘Til next week!
(comments? allanafenty@yahoo.com)
