Dear Editor,
I have been following the great debate in the Guyana press on the issue of Mr Moses Nagamootoo’s principled position in the ongoing debate on the former presidents’ benefits.
Rajendra Bissesar has now come out in support and is affirming the publicly known position of Mr Nagamootoo on this vexing issue. Mr Nagamootoo is speaking the truth when he declares that as an MP and member of the PPP/C he was conscripted to vote along party lines in Parliament in support of the Bill on the issue.
However, that affirmative vote by Mr Nagamootoo for the Bill was in contradiction to his known opposition to that unpopular piece of legislation
It will be a futile exercise to try to insinuate that Mr Nagamootoo is exercising double standards on this burning issue of the Former Presidents’ (Benefits and Other Facilities) Act. Suffice it to mention that no less a “private citizen” than the person of former President Ms Janet Jagan, herself on seeing the draft contents of that bill, had advised that it be immediately withdrawn as it was counter to any norms for which the PPP stood.
True to his party’s (PPP) organising principle of ‘Demoocratic Centralism’ Mr Nagamootoo, on losing the vote in the debate on the issue before his party, was duty bound to support the majority position on the issue forthwith, thus his affirmative vote in Parliament on the bill. In addition, he was subject to the guidance of his then Chief Whip to support the PPP/C Bill, which sets no limits on former presidents’ benefits.
All of us who were loyalists of the PPP during that earlier era, including Messrs Nagamootoo, Khemraj Ramjattan, Rajendranauth Bissesar and Lionel Peters, among numerous others, faithfully subscribed to those organising principles and until they broke from the PPP, they all observed that principle. Need I also mention that those were the diktats laid down by the founders of the PPP, the Jagans.
Mr Nagamootoo was able to exercise his conscience vote on the issue after he recently joined ranks with the AFC.
Yours faithfully,
Lionel Peters
