By Johann Earle
APNU candidate David Granger and AFC candidate Khemraj Ramjattan yesterday faced the public over their plans for government, including how they would tackle corruption, and what would happen if there was a stalemate at the general elections.
The two opposition candidates presented their cases at the Merundoi Incorporated Presidential Forum, which saw a more than one hour-long question and answer session at the Theatre Guild Playhouse in Kingston. The candidates for the incumbent PPP/C, Donald Ramotar, and TUF, Peter Persaud, were both absent.
Each candidate made ten-minute presentations, after which they were faced with questions that were received via e-mail and from persons in the audience. The moderator of the forum was veteran communications personality Abraham Poole.
“The start of this millennium marked the start of a new era in Guyanese history. It was a turning point,” Granger, the first to present, said, while adding that it also marked the commencement of the presidency of Bharrat Jagdeo. “It marked a sharp decline in the quality of life in Guyana and the start of the troubles on the East Coast. Most importantly, it marked the sharp decline in the educational standards,” he said.
Emphasising the maxim that education is the bedrock of social mobility, he noted that it contributes immensely to national development. “But in our National Grade Six Examinations, over 10,000 of the 17,000 children who wrote the examination in 2011 failed in all four subjects. At the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate, 8,000 of 12,000 students who wrote the exams failed in mathematics. [Some] 75 percent of all students do not matriculate in Guyana. Dropouts number 7,200 per year. [Some] 40 percent of our teachers are unqualified and untrained,” he said.
He noted that in terms of poverty, 43 percent of Guyanese are classified as poor and a further 29 percent classified as extremely poor. He said that the homeless, the destitute and street children are around for all to see. He said that the cost of living has increased three times over the past 19 years.
However, Granger said that the greatest challenge of the millennium so far for Guyana has been security. He said that the present state of crime and security in Guyana is “quite predictable” and not an “act of God or Force Majeure,” and charged that it is “a consequence of a calculated policy, the criminalisation of the state.” He accused the government of offering protection to various classes of crime and noted the decision not to investigate some of gruesome crimes, including the massacres of 2008. He also said that there was misuse of the police force to protect racketeers such as Thomas Carroll, a former officer in the US Embassy in Georgetown.
Granger further accused the government of doing very little in the wake of a number of studies and their resulting recommendations aimed at correcting deficiencies in the security sector. He argued that a reorganisation of the police force is vital if the crime situation is to be addressed. “Forget Bernard Kerik. Let us reform the police force by paying the police better. Let us reform the police force by providing better training, by providing aircraft so that they can patrol the borders and prevent transnational crime. Let us give them boats so that they can protect our fishermen offshore. Let us give them vehicles so that they can get into the mining areas. Let us give them computers. Let us bring them up to strength so that they can protect our citizens,” he said.
“Guyana is now a criminalised state. State-sponsored crime has damaged our security immune system, making us susceptible to backtracking, smuggling, graft and other threats to good governance. Guyana, under APNU, will be able once again to become a normal country. This is the thrust of our policy. Make Guyana safe and all things will be added. Make Guyana a secure country and our economy and our education system and our employment for young people will once again return to normalcy,” he said.
Ramjattan, meanwhile, expressed disappointment at the absence of Ramotar. “Once again, Donald has ducked the debate,” he said. “Not wanting to be examined is an attribute of sultanism which I spoke on last week,” he added, referring to the University of Guyana forum held last Thursday.
In order to take Guyana out of the morass that it is in, Ramjattan said “we have to cut corruption. We have to increase wages and salaries. We have to create a state development bank so that we can capitalise our struggling entrepreneurs and also ensure that business activity can flourish with those young ones, especially from the University of Guyana, who would like to be businesspersons.”
But, he added, economic growth is not all that is required. “We need political and social transformation. It requires no financing, no revenues, just political will and exemplary conduct,” he said.
To this end, he noted that the AFC would reform the constitution to remove the executive presidency “which the PNC promulgated in 1980 and which that party today has regretted.” The AFC would also repeal the recall legislation which takes away the independence of parliamentarians “and which supported by both the PNCR and the PPP/C,” he added.
He said that the reforms agreed upon in the local government reform process must be carried out.
“We have to see the implementation of the Procurement Commission so that the procurement could be scrutinised to the satisfaction of the public,” he said. He also identified the dismantling of the state media and the putting into place of a broadcast authority as being on the list of priorities of an AFC government. He also said that there will be consultations to decide on the level of minimum wages for public servants.
Ramjattan also argued that Guyana’s descent is not only because of bad leadership but also because of bad followership. “We choose to vote along ethnic lines and it has led to wrong policies and a wrong direction. It was misguided voting. We choose to remain silent in the wrongdoings of those we voted for, therefore we condone such wrong,” he said. He added that people must vote reason and not race.
He explained that neither the PPP/C nor APNU can win on the basis of ethnic voting alone. He said that the PNC “disguised as APNU” and the PPP were both undeserving of winning the election, since one of them stole votes from one half of the population and the other marginalised the other half of the population. “Guyanese liberation depends on a halt in race-based politics,” he declared. Granger later chided Ramjattan for the “disguised” remark, saying it was surprising and something he would have expected from Ramotar. Granger mused that Ramjattan might not have fully shaken off his old affiliations from the PPP/C.
“The AFC candidates–myself and Raphael Trotman–were not conformists of a groupthink whilst we were in our previous parties. We were bold to demand that wrong be righted and the truth be spoken. We made a break and broke the chains [and you can too],” Ramjattan said.
‘Stamping out corruption’
The first question, which was e-mailed, dealt with corruption: “If elected to government what would be your first act to demonstrate to the people of Guyana that you are serious about stamping out corruption?”
Ramjattan, who answered first, said, “The very first act would be the establishment of the Procurement Commission. It is the body that has been established under the constitution to scrutinise all contracts for services and goods. Along with that will be to ensure an extremely professional anti-fraud squad.” He said too that training to combat fraud will come from the aid that the British government was providing for the security sector. “Those are the two things that I can do as president almost immediately,” he said.
Granger, in his response, said that he would establish commissions of inquiry “to determine the weak spots in our systems and to identify what has to be corrected,” especially in the government system. “Second, I would strengthen the CID [Criminal Investigation Department] which has been badly beaten over the last ten years, because its main functions have been paralysed to facilitate what I consider state-sponsored criminality,” he said. As a result, he observed, most of the best officers have been “discouraged, demoralised and prevented” from performing their duties.
“Third, we need to put before the courts those persons who have been accused of wrongdoing as a means of exemplary punishment to deter others who might go that way. Fourth, we need to pay our public servants better,” Granger added.
The second question came from a person in the audience, who asked, whether their governments would do anything in relation to the banking system to lower interest rates for borrowing as a means of encouraging local investors.
Granger said that interest rates are tied to productivity of the economy. “What has happened largely over the last ten years or so is that although the economy has grown in dollar terms, manufacturing has faltered. We have a phenomenon of jobless growth. In order to deal with the banking problem, we need to first deal with the production problem and APNU would deal with production by creating new avenues for productivity in the areas of agro processing. Unless you make a larger cake, you would not be able to close the gap you pointed out in the interest rate. We are not manufacturing enough… and we are not exporting enough,” he said. Granger also pointed out that there are revenue leakages through smuggling of gold and fuel.
Ramjattan, meanwhile, said that the state development bank which the AFC hopes to establish will encourage local investors. He said that monies from remittances can go to a pool, the trustees of which can be made of up of prominent citizens.
Another question asked the candidates whether their party is committed to the repeal of the executive presidency and whether they will repeal or amend the law covering former president’s benefits, which has been criticised as excessive since its passage.
According to Ramjattan, the AFC would move to end the executive presidency but noted that this requires a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. “We will also repeal the pension package and that does not require a two-thirds majority. So once we get a 51 percent majority that will be repealed in the very first week of an AFC government,” he said.
Granger said that the APNU is committed to separating the head of state and the head of government. “To do this we will reconvene the Constitutional Reform Commission and we will make that a part of a package of constitutional reform,” he said, while adding that the president’s pension package will also “be altered.”
One person situated his question in a scenario. “We are now at December 2 and the scenario is as follows: the Chairman of the Elections Commission has announced that no political party is a clear winner in the elections. The AFC is now in the position of kingmaker and has to join forces with one of the political parties to form a government. Those political parties are the APNU and the PPP/C. Would you make a decision to go with APNU or with PPP/C?” the questioner asked.
Ramjattan answered and said, “At this stage we will not join up. What we will do is remain in opposition. But we will prefer to have–if it is a three-way race–a government of national unity incorporating all parties.”
Granger said, “Even before December 2 we said that the door is open. We will welcome into our partnership any political party which shares our principles and are committed to a government of national unity. A government of national unity means exactly what it says… that we are going to welcome parties from every spectrum. We are going to welcome NGOs; we are going to welcome civil society. Based on the number of seats in the National Assembly, we would welcome a partnership with the AFC. We will welcome a partnership with people from the PPP/C who are not under indictment for serious crimes, if any!” he said.
Another question sought to know of both candidates what are the three most critical issues confronting Guyana and which have the capability of imperiling Guyana’s future. Granger listed transnational crime, the education situation and the economy, which he said is being kept back by a miniscule manufacturing sector. Ramjattan, meanwhile, said that the energy sector is very much in deficit and that without cheap energy there is no scope of getting the manufacturing sector to take off. He cited corruption as another critical issue holding the country back. The third critical issue, he said, was bad governance, from the ministers all the way to the president.
