Opposition Member of Parliament Anil Nandlall says that the AFC’s performance in government has been far from “fantastic,” contrary to the recent assessment of the party’s leader.
AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan last Friday rated the party’s performance in the governing APNU+AFC coalition as fantastic.
However, in a statement issued on Monday, Nandlall charged that Ramjattan, like the government, is out of sync with reality.
“The reality is the AFC has been an abject and abysmal failure in government,” he said, while pointing to the failure of the coalition to uphold the provisions of the Cummingsburg Accord in relation to the role of the Prime Minister in the government as well as the performance of Ramjattan and other AFC ministers.
Under the Accord, the Prime Minister was expected to chair the Cabinet and be responsible for domestic affairs except national security, while the President would be responsible for foreign affairs and national security.
Nandlall said the promises did not materialise and that the only known mandate of the Prime Minister is oversight of the Guyana Chronicle and the National Communication Network (NCN), while he is only the “symbolic leader” of government business in the National Assembly.
“It is clear to all, that Ms. Amna Ally is the de facto leader of government business in the National Assembly. Indeed, the three last occasions that the Prime Minister made the news were in relation to issues that are far beneath the portfolio of a Prime Minister but converted into newsworthy items by the Prime Minister himself. These are: (1) receiving a miniature cricket bat with signatures of the Amazon Warriors, (2) handing to the President a resolution passed by the National Assembly confirming nominees to the Procurement Commission days after the motion was actually passed in the National Assembly and after the news element regarding the same had become dated and (3) instructing NCN’s CEO to restore a young woman who had been removed from anchoring the news because she was pregnant,” he said.
With regards to the NCN issue, he said that it has obviously escaped the Prime Minister as well as the government that in so doing he “usurped the authority of the Board of Directors of NCN and essentially was guilty of political interference.”
However, Nagamootoo did not order NCN to restore Smith and only advised that the Chief Executive Officer Lennox Cornette apologise to her for having her removed from air due to her pregnancy.
According to Nandlall, Ramjattan’s portfolio itself was truncated before his appointment and an important segment of his ministry was removed and given to Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix. Ramjattan is the Minister of Public Security (formerly Ministry of Home Affairs). The Citizenship Ministry deals with all matters of citizenship which were formerly dealt with by the then Ministry of Home Affairs.
“Based upon media reports, comments from random members of the public and views expressed on the social media, Mr. Ramjattan’s performance is adjudged to be mediocre at a minimum. In the opinion of the public, crime continues to spiral out of control and Mr. Ramjattan appears progressively more incapable of tackling the situation,” Nandlall said.
Ramjattan reported last Friday that the crime rate has decreased. He said that though the public may not be seeing this, the statistics show otherwise. He said too that more work is needed to ensure the crime rate goes even lower.
Nandlall, turning his attention to Minister of Agriculture and AFC member Noel Holder, said that by any standards he appears both “hopeless and helpless.”
“Sugar and rice, the two largest sectors in the agriculture industry in Guyana are in crisis. In terms of rice, cultivation for this crop is 40% less than the last crop. The farmers [who] have gone back to the land are in survival mode. Do not listen to me. Hear AFC+APNU’s Turhane Doerga and Jinnah Rahaman on the state of the rice industry in Guyana …,” he added.
According to Nandlall, Ramjattan’s assessment of the AFC in government clearly ignores the statements that have been made by the party’s own executive members, including Nigel Hughes, whom he said has resigned as AFC Chairman obviously because of the “impotence” of the party in the coalition.”
Ramjattan last Friday said that Hughes is still the Chairman of the party but Hughes told Stabroek News over the weekend that his resignation from the position remains in effect.
Nandlall also spoke of the elections manifesto promise by the coalition to get rid of corruption in office, to stop single sourcing of contracts and to ensure that all contracts must be done in accordance with the Procurement Act.
He questioned whether Ramjattan has forgotten all that.
He also charged that what is being witnessed now is a greater volume of corruption, more single sourcing than ever and the greatest degree of disregard for the Procurement Act since its implementation in 2003.
