The Alliance For Change (AFC) is calling on Dr. Roger Luncheon to resign his post as Secretary to Cabinet and Head of the Presidential Secretariat for what it called his attempts at misleading the nation on whether the Government can back out of contracts signed during the last term.
“As Secretary to Cabinet and Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Luncheon was fully aware of the ‘underhand’ deals former President (Bharrat) Jagdeo was entering into. Dr Luncheon had a duty to this nation to oppose such contracts and make known his opposition then. He must remember that first and foremost he is a public servant and answerable to the people,” said AFC member Khemraj Ramjattan, speaking at a press conference yesterday.
He said now that former President Jagdeo is no longer in charge, “Dr Luncheon is seeking to remove himself from blame.”
Ramjattan said, “Instead of demanding a review of these contracts he now wants the poor overtaxed Guyanese people to bear the financial burden”.
Ramjattan said that instead of demanding an investigation to see whether there were fraudulent intents in the haste in signing these contracts and bringing those responsible to justice, Luncheon now seeks to mislead this nation into believing that these contracts must be honoured at all cost to the taxpayers.
“He went at length to state erroneously that the Trinidad Government had to pay tremendous penalties when they cancelled contracts entered into by the previous administration but omitted the fact that all such contracts found to be against the interest of the Trinidadian people were cancelled without penalty,” Ramjattan said.
“He even omitted to state that the Contractor General in Jamaica recently demanded of the new Government in that country that a Highway contract with a Chinese Construction Company, the very one with which Mr. Jagdeo signed our airport expansion project, be cancelled and international bidding invited,” he said.
He noted that it is the same Dr Luncheon who as Chairman of the NIS Board released US$30 million of “poor taxpayers money” to Clico, whose former Chairman “is a friend of Mr. Jagdeo.”
“Those contracts were not subject to any feasibility study, no competitive tendering, were not disclosed to Parliament, they merely reflect the former President’s recklessness with taxpayers money…” he said. “This conflict of interest … must come to an end and Mr. Jagdeo must be subjected to an integrity investigation…” Ramjattan said.
He said that President Ramotar must disassociate himself from the party’s ‘diehard’ and deal with corruption frontally; as his first duty is to the people of this country. “He would be advised as a start, to have new integrity legislation, an independent Integrity Commission, cancelling all such secret contracts, and very important, the replacement of (officials) of Government accused of corruption pending an integrity investigation. In addition he should ask Dr. Luncheon to resign,” Ramjattan said.
He said in light of the situation and in the interest of taxpayers’ right to know how their money will be spent, the AFC is considering amendments to strengthen the Access to Information Act.
“You will recall that the AFC had tabled a Freedom of Information Bill that was rejected by the PPP/C at the last Parliament. They then used their majority to pass their own ‘watered down’ Access to Information Bill. These are issues that the AFC hopes this new Parliament will address,” Ramjattan said.
