A lean clean government which is transparent in its actions and accountable to the nation is what new Alliance For Change (AFC) parliamentarian Dr Veerasammy Ramayya hopes the new dispensation in the National Assembly can achieve in the next five years.
“It is hoped that there would be more transparency, more participation and the people, the tax payers must know how their money is being spent,” Dr Ramayya said in an interview with the Sunday Stabroek.
Not new to the world of politics, Dr Ramayya, who practices alternative medicine, has been on the ground in Berbice working for and with the ordinary people against a party his father was affiliated with and one that gave him his first taste in politics. Like many, for years, Dr Ramayya had been unhappy with the direction the PPP/C had taken but his despondency with the party began even before its founder Dr Cheddi Jagan died. This drove him to form his own party and later he became a member of Ravi Dev’s ROAR before recently joining the AFC.
His decision to campaign for the AFC was not an easy one, Ramayya said, as he was subjected to threats. At one time the PPP, led by former president Bharrat Jagdeo, even kept a political meeting in front of his home and “curse me out”. He said he was not at home at the time, but his wife was traumatised by the experience.
“They traumatized my wife very much and in the interim they call me quack doctor and bush medicine doctor,” he told the Sunday Stabroek adding that it has had an impact on his practice.
Ramayya said while those in the PPP thought they would have broken him by attacking him they only built his resilience because he is not a quitter.
He described the November 28 elections result as historic. The National Assembly is where the people of Guyana would see the results of what they voted for, he said.
He hopes Parliament will pave the way for the police force to be professionalised and for the ranks to receive better salaries. He hopes more television and radio stations would become a reality and that all political parties would have equal coverage on NCN.
Ramayya indicated that anything the PPP takes to Parliament that is good for the country will receive critical support from the AFC.
“What I hope we would achieve in Parliament is to change the dictatorial attitude of these people…,” he said.
‘Mistakes’
Meanwhile, he said one of the greatest mistakes he made was coming back to Guyana in 1994 at the invitation of the late Dr Jagan because “when I came here I saw a different Cheddi Jagan from what he was before 1992 elections.”
His first disappointment was that he was forced to pay duties on the vehicles he brought back and “all the promises he [Dr Jagan] made to me were not kept”. He said it was not just him but other patriotic Guyanese who came back to Guyana after the party was returned to power.
He disclosed that he had contributed over a quarter of a million Guyana dollars to the party’s 1992 election campaign. Around the same time, he said, Dr Leslie Ramsammy was attempting to raise funds in Florida for a party he had formed. The new parliamentarian recalled that he had struggled against Ramsammy to raise funds for the PPP.
According to Ramayya, favouritism in job allocation started under Dr Jagan’s presidency and he was disappointed since back then as party-aligned individuals were given jobs. This forced him to mobilize people to contest the local government elections with his own political party–People Helping People–in1994. He received over 600 votes and picked up six seats in the Whim/Bloomingfield Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC).
He said since then he was “really branded by the PPP” and eventually he was forced to remove from the NDC as the PPP had 12 members and his six members were not allowed to make a difference in the way issues were dealt with. He likened what happened on the NDC to what had been happening for “19 years in the National Assembly”.
For some 16 years, Ramayya has had a popular television programme in Berbice and at first he focused on health issues but soon included social issues affecting Berbicans; chief among them NIS, GWI and the plight of the sugar workers.
He also has a television programme in Georgetown but this deals mainly with health issues.
In 2000, he was approached by Ravi Dev and became an executive member of ROAR and while at first he worked with just the sugar workers, when Dr Jagan died Dev decided to contest national elections. Ramayya said that long after Dev’s party was no more he continued the struggle with the sugar workers and supported them in the many strike actions they took in Berbice and he also supported other Berbicians who were unhappy with the direction the country was taking. He said he was even accused of starting the protest actions as he took the leadership role for the ordinary people.
Ramayya also worked along with churches in the feeding of children, assisting in offsetting funeral expenses among other things. He said that at Christmas he would feed children and give them gifts and he also provided for the older folks.
“So in my work I was committed to the poor people in Berbice,” he said, pointing out that this was realized by the PPP and they attempted to target him by “cursing me down”.
In 2005, he was approached by AFC duo Raphael Trotman and Khemraj Ramjattan and asked to join the party but he was reluctant because of the bad experience he had with ROAR and the fact that it was a new party and he did not know the two gentlemen well. After attending the party’s rallies he became impressed with the late Sheila Holder and later with the party’s ideas.
It was after he was labelled an AFC member when he invited Trotman and Ramjattan on his television programme last year that Ramayya decided to join the party.
Ramayya said he knew the political landscape would have changed because of what he described as the “corruption of the PPP” which he said was beyond his comprehension and was “20 times worse than the PNC’s 28 years.”
He was high in praise for the late president Desmond Hoyte who he said opened the door for democracy. As a result, he said, the first few years, things were going well but when Dr Jagan died “everything fell apart and things started to get from bad to worse.”
He told the Sunday Stabroek that he started his political career in the 60s together with Moses Nagamootoo and in those days if you were not with the PNC then you were with the PPP. His father was closely affiliated with the latter and he joined the party as a youth. Not having an interest in communism Dr Ramayya said he refused an opportunity to study at a college on the East Bank through the party and also another offer to study overseas. He may have become a police officer if he had not been turned down by the powers that be on the basis of his connection with the PPP.
Dr Ramayya said he migrated to the US where he read for two degrees in political science, one in third world politics and the other in international politics. His poor upbringing saw him always thriving for better in life and he worked not only to achieve for himself but also to assist his extended family.
He later read for a master’s degree and a PhD in psychology.
He has been married for over 40 years and his only child–a daughter–died at the age of 15 from an unknown illness. It was a triple heart bypass that pointed him in the direction of alternative medicine.
