The disclosure last week of a sitting Minister of the Government and Member of Parliament (MP) accused of raping and sodomising a 16-year old girl from the indigenous community, has sent shockwaves throughout the length and breadth of Guyana and beyond its borders. The matter came to the fore when the alleged victim wrote a letter to the President, which was shared in the social media, detailing what transpired at the home of the Minister. The President indicated that while he was aware of the allegations made against the Minister, he did not see the letter. He then stated that he spoke to the Minister who denied the allegations; he approved of the Minister proceeding on administrative leave at the Minister’s request to facilitate an investigation into the matter; and the matter would be thoroughly investigated.
The President has been severely criticized for not taking a firmer stand on one of the most serious matters affecting his Administration. As soon as the allegations surfaced, he should have acted by suspending the Minister from performing his duties both as a Minister and an MP, rather than waiting on the Minister to request leave. Suffice it to state that it is the President who appoints Ministers. They serve at his pleasure, and any allegation of misconduct or criminal behaviour should be dealt with swiftly by way of dismissal and investigation by the relevant authorities. Given the seriousness of the allegations, how does the Minister expect to face the staff of his Ministry as well as individuals and organisations with whom he is required to interface in the performance of his duties? How will he be able to sit in the National Assembly – the highest forum of the land – as an elected representative of the people and face fellow MPs? And what contribution can the Minister now make to the public good and the public interest? In other jurisdictions, the Minister would have been shown the door pronto. In Guyana, however, party politics and party loyalty tend to take precedence over good governance, the rule of law, morality, ethics, justice and fair play. Whichever party is in power, the tendency has been to “circle the wagons”. As a senior official from one political divide once said, ‘the party’s interest comes first’!
The Minister, accompanied by his lawyer, then visited the Brickdam Police Station where he was arrested. He spent a little less than four hours in Police custody after which he was released on $1 million bail. Calls from various organisations were made for the Minister’s removal from office, and there were protests outside of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, and the Office of the President also calling for his resignation.
Not the first time
This is not the first time that the Minister was embroiled in conduct unbecoming of his status as a public official. Some of the allegations against him were detailed in last Wednesday’s letter to the Editor by Dr. Jerry Jailall. One recalls a motion that was submitted to the National Assembly by a Member of Parliament (MP) Cathy Hughes in February 2022 to suspend the Minister for his remarks, ‘Is a dildo you want, that is what you looking for’, directed at another Opposition MP.
It took eight months for Mrs. Hughes to be informed that the Speaker had disallowed the motion, after she had followed up in a letter to the Speaker. Through the Clerk of the Assembly, the Speaker had indicated that he based his decision on the ground that the Minister had apologized and that he (the Speaker) was satisfied that the following statement made in the Assembly by the Minister constitutes an apology, and that he considered it to be adequate:
If I had said anything that was misconstrued, it was not my intention to make those statements to that effect, and, there were statements that were also unparliamentary, on my part, during the course of the interrogations, then I would like to withdraw them as well.
We must note that the Minister used the words “if” and “misconstrued” and therefore he did not in effect acknowledge the inappropriateness of his ‘dildo’ comment. In the circumstances, his statement could hardly be considered an apology, genuinely and sincerely made.
The Minister’s ‘dildo’ comment prompted another MP to label him a “nasty fella”. This prompted the Speaker to request the MP to withdraw his remark and take his seat. The MP, however, refused to do so, contending that the Speaker was condoning what the Minister had said. The concerned MP was then suspended for four sittings of the Assembly!
One of the Commissioners of the Women and Gender Equality Commission, Ms. Nicole Cole, considered the remarks of the Minister as sexual harassment and abuse. In this regard, she had the following to say:
This attacking and abusing women then issuing an apology is to give him a free pass and what is really at play here is deep rooted patriarchy…His party, if they had the inkling of any type of feelings for women should immediately ask him to vacate his office. He is unfit to lead. He should no longer hold public office. So in other words, he should no longer be in the House.
One also recalls the Minister calling for the “defrocking” of two female judges from their judicial positions after their rulings did not find favour with his party. There was no evidence of any sanctions taken against the Minister for an attack of the Judiciary. He is being investigated by the Police, and if he is charged, the irony of it all is that the Minister will have to face the same Judiciary about which he made disparaging remarks.
Some comments from the protestors
One of the protestors, Vanessa Kissoon, who travelled from Linden to be part of the protest, called on the President to do the right thing: ‘Mr. President you are watching, Do the right thing! Do the right thing!… that young woman is crying out for help and she is crying for justice’. She stated that as a mother and a teacher she is haunted by the disclosure that is now in the public domain. Ms. Kissoon stressed that those in authority and at the top should not prey on the vulnerable, but rather find means and ways to represent and protect the children.
Another protestor, Ms. Amanza Walton-Desir, stated she does not understand why the Minister was released on bail, arguing that she saw a considerable disparity in treatment between the Minister and Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo and Deputy Chief Election Officer Roxanne Myers who were imprisoned on suspicion of committing electoral offences. Ms. Walton-Desi pointed out that they were forced to stay in a filthy prison cell and were paraded in shackles:
Here you have a man who has allegedly raped and sodomized an Indigenous girl, and he is put on bail and kept in custody for four hours. Now, if you are right-thinking, you have to see there is something wrong with that because all must be equal before the law. The law is the only equalising factor that we have in this country and when as Guyanese we begin to equivocate and we begin to selectively apply the law, we as Guyanese citizens are allowing the country to slide into decline. We must stop it.
Lessons from Trinidad and Tobago
In our article of 24 April 2014, we referred to the decision of the then Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, to dispense with the services of 12 of her Ministers for relatively minor offences during her four-year tenure in office. These include: apparent conflict of interest involving the award of contract to a company headed by the Minister’s husband; disorderly behaviour while on board a domestic flight, despite the issue of an apology; refusal to take a breathalyser test when stopped by the Police; and assaulting a former girlfriend. It is perhaps relevant to repeat the words of the then Prime Minister as regards these dismissals:
There must be no compromise on integrity, no allowance for arrogance, no room for violation of mutual respect; there will be no sacrifice of our values on the altar of political expediency.
Regardless of whether the decisions I take hurt me politically or not, I have the strength and courage and independence of mind to measure every tough decision on the basis of what is right and just…Regardless of the consequences, I remain resolved to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. My decisions in the past demonstrate this consistency regardless of whether you are in my Cabinet or not. No one is exempt from the measure of value based leadership…
All my considerations are character driven. I hold no brief for any man or woman save the greater public interest. I am always aware of the higher expectation upon which this Government was elected and the immense responsibility each of us has to uphold public trust in all we do every single day of our lives. It is not a responsibility we can choose to have one day and lose the next.
I am reminded of Gandhi’s identification of one of seven social sins as being “politics without principle”. I have insisted from the moment we took office that every one of us must display a sound character of public integrity, fairness, humility, compassion and human dignity.
Further, no man, nor woman, has been allowed nor will be permitted to deviate from the very principles upon which my Government was elected by the people into office… I know there will be arguments put forward by some as to what was condoned in the past administration to allow for continuity but I disagree.
As regards the dismissal of one of the Ministers for assaulting her former girlfriend, the Prime Minister stated that she was not swayed by any other consideration other than that which is right and honourable and that each member of her Administration must be mindful that he or she is held to different, higher standards than ever before, even by the most bitter critics. She further stated that:
There is no privileged escape, no allowance for arrogance, no forgiveness for indiscretion. Those days are gone, such compromise has expired. The responsible leadership which we promised to usher in a dawn of a new era is the new political currency.
My leadership isn’t formed in the mould of loud and angry politicians who feel that shouting and attacking everything is the best way to be heard. But my decisions and policies speak even louder of who I am and what I expect of those around me in government.
The government is stronger than ever because of the tough decisions taken and the population can breathe easier today, confident in the knowledge that value based leadership will never be compromised.
The above statements must rank among the best from a contemporary politician on the questions of integrity, morality and discipline in public life; consideration of the public interest; and governance, transparency and accountability. It was not mere rhetoric – she backed her statements with firm action. Arun Gandhi explained what his grandfather meant when he spoke about politics without principles as one of the seven sins:
Those who firmly believe in nonviolence should never stand for elections, but they should elect representatives who are willing to understand and practice the philosophy. An elected representative is one on whom you have bestowed your power of attorney. Such a person should be allowed to wield authority only as long as s/he enjoys your confidence. When politicians indulge in power games, they act without principles. To remain in power at all cost is unethical. When politicians (or anyone else, for that matter) give up the pursuit of Truth, they, or in the case of parties, would be doomed. Partisan politics, lobbying, bribing, and other forms of malpractice that are so rampant in politics today [are] also unprincipled. Politics has earned the reputation of being dirty. It is so because we made it dirty. We create power groups to lobby for our cause and are willing to do anything to achieve our goal. Not many among human kind have learned how to resist temptation, so who is to blame for the mess we find ourselves in?
The President needs to take a leaf from the book of the former Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and do the right and honourable thing: fire the Minister! And will the Integrity Commission investigate the apparent breaches in the Code of Conduct as contained in the Schedule II of the Act? Or will it await the receipt of a complaint from a member of the public? By Section 27 (2), a person in public life who is in breach of any of the provisions of the Code is liable on summary conviction to a fine of $25,000 and to imprisonment for a period not less than six months to a year.
