Dear Editor,
I am writing this letter in a state of infuriation, and concern for what is now passing for Governance and the Rule of Law. This letter is prompted by the arrest, detention and persecution of yet another perceived antagonist of the PPP/C, who happen to be an African Guyanese, Trevor Benn, under the pretext of Misconduct in Public Office.
Permit me to recall two incidents in which I was embroiled when I was the Registrar of the University of Guyana; and exposures that I experienced when I served as the Technical Facilitator to the Minister Rupert Roopnaraine.
As Registrar of the University, I also served as Secretary to the Council of the University. On more than one occasion, I confronted a council member, who was also a Minister of Government and a senior member of the PPP. The aforementioned member would have, on an annual basis, insisted that the monies appropriated to the Students` Loan Revolving Fund was a subvention to the University. That position was most absurd, ill-informed and even malicious. The University had no control over any aspect of that fund, except for drawing down rights in the instances when students accessed loans to pay fees to UG. The loan was a contractual agreement between the student and the Loan Agency and was repayable to the Loan Agency/Ministry of Finance. On no occasion did the students draw down all of the appropriated sum. However, the Hon. Minister insisted that the entire sum, even that which had not been disbursed as a loan, was a subvention to the University and made vile threats to discontinue the appropriation, if I insisted that it was not a subvention.
Another Minister, who was not on the Council, once called to instruct me on the payment regime that should have been afforded a particular student who was not entitled to those terms of payment of fees. On my refusal to carry-out the instruction, I was accosted and the threat of the withdrawal of UG`s subvention was the Minister`s parting words. That Minister also had university graduates blacklisted by the Immigration Department although, as students, they never entered into any agreement with the Ministry in question nor did the loan agreement provide for blacklisting. In fact, thousands of students travelled freely, but a few were targeted for unlawful blacklisting. One graduate actually sought the court`s redress.
When I served as Technical Advisor to Minister Roopnaraine, my attention was drawn to the fact that Government had occupied a number of properties for which there was no paper trail showing acquisition and or ownership, by Government, of the properties. Some of those acquisitions pre-dated Guyana`s Independence and even its Self-Rule.
I recalled the aforementioned experiences to demonstrate that in many instances Ministers arrogate unto themselves knowledge and authority, neither of which they possess. In other instances, there are past actions and/or omissions which have rendered the state of things irregular, conflicting and in need of institutional rectification. However, the custodians of our Legislative and Administrative sovereignty rather than acquainting themselves with the manner of the conduct of Public Affairs and the challenges confronting public administration in Guyana, simply impose their ignorance on the system and misappropriate authority in pursuance of what they articulate to be the Nation`s interest. In many instances it is simply vindictiveness while the real issue remains unresolved.
I am advised that it is the combination of the aforementioned maladies (ignorance and vindictiveness) that has occasioned the arrest, detention and persecution of Mr. Benn, not to mention the political imperatives that motivate the masquerading of their ignorance and the witch-hunting of their opponents “so called”.
Yours truly,
Vincent Alexander
