Dear Editor,
Something is definitely amiss at the Ministry of the Presidency and with the cabinet. On the one hand, ministers of government are quoted in the press as saying one thing while the Ministry of the Presidency either says something else or comes out defending positions which cabinet has either not endorsed or not addressed.
What is even more distressing is the government’s propensity to engage in ad hominem attacks and character assassination of persons whom they perceive to be hostile and non-supportive of the government of the day.
A recent case in point is the Commissioner of Information in the exchanges with the Prime Minister who holds the portfolio of Minister of Information.
On January 24 the nation was informed by the Prime Minister that since 2013 the Commissioner of Information had failed to submit to him a single report to him since he assumed office.
The learned Commissioner who is senior to Mr Nagamootoo in the legal profession was at pains to emphasize that it is not the Commissioner of Information who by law has the responsibility to prepare a report.
On the contrary, it is the Minister of Information himself who by law must prepare a report of the operation of the Act based on such information that would have been submitted to his office by the Commissioner and for the Minister to lay the report in the National Assembly.
So for Mr Nagamootoo to claim that Mr Ramson as Commissioner of Information had failed to submit a single report to his office is to be misleading. It is the Prime Minister who is delinquent in this case.
Moreover, the purpose of Mr Nagamootoo’s crusade in the Ramson matter is made even clearer when the nation was told that “the matter is now engaging the President’s attention because under the Act the contract of employment for the Commissioner falls under the presidency.”
So now we know that it is not a case of a report not being submitted, or that the Commissioner was locked away from the public that was the bone of contention, but rather the issue of replacing Mr Ramson or not replacing him with anyone at all with a view to eventually jettisoning the post of Commissioner of Information.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J Rohee, MP
