Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday warned that international organizations which disburse monies to the current administration during this period might not be repaid if his party forms the next government.
““Let me say to the international organizations …for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and all the others who insist on disbursing funds and approving contracts now that…they cannot claim that they have not been warned. It will have implications for repayments. I don’t think Guyanese taxpayers must repay monies that is being stolen with the complicity of some of these organisations,” he said at his weekly press conference.
He specifically mentioned a US$2,251,880 contract signed for the Design, Supply and Installation of a 150kW hydropower plant on the Chiung River, at Kato Village, in Region Eight and claimed that the project which is part of the IDB’s Sustainable Energy Programme for Guyana has elements of corruption.
“We don’t have a problem with the project, we have a problem with this Government abusing the process and doing it in an unconstitutional way,” Jagdeo told reporters explaining that this expenditure is inconsistent with routine functioning of government and is therefore illegal.
He shared that he had informed the IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno during a recent meeting of his party’s position on international funding dispersed during this period.
Jagdeo took pains to explain that despite the recent proclamation signed by President David Granger the President still remains “unconstitutional and illegal.”
“They shouldn’t have even done that for smaller contracts much less a big contract like that… but they keep doing this despite their caretaker status. This is prohibited by every international convention. It is outside of the ruling of the CCJ (Caribbean Court of Justice) which said you have limited authority in this period,” he stressed.
According to the Opposition Leader while he is confident a court would declare the government illegal his party prefers to focus on the general election which is scheduled for March 2, 2020. He further declared that the President does not deserve any praise for having issued the proclamation as it only came “through struggle and international pressure.”
“President Granger has not done Guyana a favour by issuing this proclamation. Let us be clear it is no favour to Guyana. It had to be dragged out of him. It took several acts of protest and several statements from the international community threatening the withholding of aid and declaring him unconstitutional to get him to do what is legal and constitutional,” Jagdeo said, while referencing statements from the Commonwealth and the Organisation of American States.
