President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday said that he has been friends with mortgage fraud-accused businessman, Ed Ahmad for around 15 years but would not condone any wrongdoing.
He also reiterated that Ahmad, the real-estate broker who was charged last week in New York and placed on US$2.5M bond, helped the PPP support group, Association of Concerned Guyanese (ACG), but has not contributed any money to the campaign of the party’s Presidential Candidate, Donald Ramotar.
“The General Secretary said they hadn’t collected any money (from Ahmad) for this campaign,” Jagdeo said at a media briefing at the International Convention Centre at Liliendaal, in response to a question from Stabroek News on whether Ahmad has contributed financially to the PPP.
Ahmad has helped the ACG in New York and might have contributed to other entities as well, Jagdeo said, suggesting that the Alliance For Change (AFC) should be asked the question. Even if Ahmad has contributed to the PPP in the past, “it doesn’t mean anything,” he said. Ahmad advertises his real estate business on the ACG website and was also named as a contact person on a flyer advertising the visit of Ramotar to New York after he was selected as the PPP’s Presidential Candidate.
Jagdeo said that as President and when he was Finance Minister, he did not deal with any contributions to the PPP and referred all to the General Secretary of the Party.
Earlier, the president said that he knew Ahmad for about 15 years and he was his friend. “I know this gentleman well. I considered him all these years, a friend but if he does anything illegal, it doesn’t mean that I will condone this. No I will not condone him,” he said.
“If Ed Ahmad broke the law in New York, then he must face the consequences, but I can’t deny knowing somebody, I know him very well,” he said. Jagdeo said that he knew many other people including Kaieteur News publisher, Glenn Lall “who used to say he was my friend” and who he alleged he later found out was a “back-tracker”. Jagdeo said too that the mortgage scam that Ahmad is charged for, the brother-in-law of the Editor-in-Chief of Stabroek News, Anand Persaud, was charged for the same thing. “I didn’t see much publicity about that but suddenly you see this issue surfacing,” he said.
“And a lot of the people who try to deny these connections, they’re the ones who have things to hide. I have nothing to hide because I don’t tolerate people breaking the law. If they break the law, even if you’re my friend, you face the consequences. But it doesn’t mean that I’m gonna deny you but you face consequences. But I can’t account for everybody who I call friend or I know that every single day what they’re doing is above the board. I can’t. It’s impossible,” Jagdeo said.
