Dear Editor,
It is not my orientation to give credence to the constant harangue of the Guyana Times and its surrogates within the Ramroop Media Group directed towards Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and other well known select members of the Coalition Government’s cabinet.
Permit me, however, to make a rare exception on this occasion to respond to the falsehoods and misinformation contained in a letter penned by one Tiana King-David which appeared in the May 4th edition of the Guyana Times.
The falsehoods and misinformation contained in the letter have been relentlessly repeated by the PPP-aligned Guyana Times. The publication has dedicated a considerable amount of space and obvious time and effort towards perfecting the positioning of such misinformation in its onslaught directed towards the Prime Minister.
It can only be deduced that the publication and its handlers are of the conviction that the Prime Minister is such a high value political target that he must be constantly and uninterruptedly serviced with their energies and attention. When the attacks are not by way of news articles, editorials and columns, they are by way of letters under dubious psuedonyms.
Therefore the Guyana Times’ neurotic preoccupation with the Prime Minister is instructive of the publication and its backers’ view of the subject of its unrelenting idée fixe. These attacks are not coincidental or uncalculated; they are part of a well-orchestrated opposition piloted plan to systematically pillage the reputation of the Prime Minister, and those of select other cabinet colleagues of the democratically elected coalition government.
The facts are:
- In 2014, under the then minority PPP government, the sum of G$23M was voted for in the National Budget for the acquisition of a 4×4 vehicle for the then Prime Minister Mr Samuel Hinds.
- The records inherited by the coalition government show that that sum was instead used for the purchase of a vehicle which was assigned to the Ministry of Finance under then Minister of Finance, Dr Ashni Singh. The legality and prudence of such an act is to be determined by those possessed of the expertise and authority to so do.
- In the 2015 budget, the sum of G$22M was allocated for the purchase of the vehicle for use by the Prime Minister. This was necessitated by the fact that the vehicle purchased in 2014 ended up not at the Office of the Prime Minister but at the Ministry of Finance.
- The Prime Minister does not have “a fleet of more than 20 vehicles”. Any such claim, as was made by Ms King-David is an untruth.
- The Office of the Prime Minister has 11 vehicles in total. Four are assigned to the Prime Minister. Two of the four are used by security personnel.
- Of the vehicles inherited from former Prime Minister Sam Hinds, several were found to have been malfunctioning and in very poor condition. On a recent trip the headlights of one of the inherited vehicles came loose and fell out. Another of the vehicles was in such poor condition that it encountered extreme difficulty in navigating the elevated section of the Berbice Bridge.
- The official residence of the Prime Minister was received in a state of disrepair and not fit for human occupation. Remedial works are being completed. All of these works were executed in a transparent manner. Any imputation of an absence of accountability is without merit.
- The Prime Minister’s salary was increased only marginally to take it above that of the Attorney General to correct an anomaly which existed under the PPP government. This was a virtual accounting increase, as the fact is, the Attorney General’s take-home salary (as that of his predecessor Mr Anil Nandlall) is greater than that of the the Prime Minister. This is for the simple reason that the Prime Minister’s salary attracts the deduction of taxes while the AG’s does not.
These are the facts. The people of Guyana will determine what they deem to be the ulterior and/or barefaced agenda of Guyana Times and its surrogates.
The loose language, misinformation, skilful and selective use of cherry-picked bits of information while deliberately excluding other pertinent facts has become the trademark of the newspaper which styles itself as the ‘Beacon of Truth’. From the evidence of its content, along with its raw obsession with the Prime Minister, the Guyana Times may wish to consider whether it should not modify its slogan to ‘Being of Untruth’.
Yours faithfully,
Imran Khan
Press Secretary to Prime Minister Moses V Nagamootoo
