Dear Editor,
Dr. Singh, the Minister with responsibility for Finance, appeared in Parliament on Monday, 15th January, to present a national budget bursting with $1.14 trillion, made possible from the windfall of our newly discovered oil resources. This should have been a time of excitement and optimism.
However, what was most memorable in Dr. Singh’s presentation was not the proposals for fiscal management of our newfound riches. It was about the vitriol and venom with which the usually calm Minister responded to the unnecessary and ugly heckling from the impotent opposition in that House. Stabroek News reports that Dr. Singh answer-ed the Opposition’s observation that he was one of those who left Guyana after the Granger Government took office in 2015 with the words: ‘I went on self-imposed political exile because of political prosecution by the APNU-AFC!… You know who bring me back to Guyana? The APNU-AFC bring me back to Guyana… and they imposed political prosecution against me. I vowed then that I will devote the rest of my life to keeping them from office. And so I will do.”
Dr. Singh has good reason for personal resentment. Under the Granger administration, the APNU-controlled SOCU pressed criminal charges against Dr. Singh for misconduct in public office. SOCU humiliated him with handcuffs and shackles in an unnecessary parade of shame which reflected only the vindictive nature of the triumphant APNU Govern-ment. So Dr. Singh is aggrieved, and his hostility to the Opposition may be justified.
A New and United Guyana wishes to point out what should be obvious: that the PPP, which Dr. Singh represents, is no different from the APNU which he accuses. After they came into office in 2020, the PPP installed their own people to run the infamous SOCU. Now controlled by the PPP, SOCU promptly charged Dr. Singh’s counterpart, former Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan, with the same criminal charge, misconduct in public office, and hauled him before the Magistrates’ Court. And if Dr. Singh’s prosecution by APNU was unjust, A New and United Guyana observes that Mr. Jordan was acquitted by the Magistrate in May, 2023, the Court ruling that SOCU had not presented sufficient evidence to prove the commission of a crime, so he did not even need to lead a defence.
Both APNU and the PPP have when in power been guilty of corrupt political persecution of their opponents via abuse of their control of the Police. That corrupt abuse of power has undermined public confidence in the Police Force and in the administration of justice in Guyana. The incidents of political influence are not isolated. The public is reminded of the 19 political charges against President Ali before 2020, and against Mohabir Nandlall for law books. In turn, James Bond and Colvin Heath-London were charged with misconduct in November, 2020, when control of SOCU had shifted to the new PPP Government.
Dr. Singh was in Parliament to present and defend a historical national budget. But what has emerged from his moment of spontaneous honesty, and what the public must confront, is how implacable, destructive and all-encompassing the enmity between the two ethno-centric parties has become, and how hollow rings the clichéd refrain: “One Guyana”.
A New and United Guyana urges our people: recognize the harm. It is in both of the large, ethno-centric parties.
Yours faithfully,
Timothy Jonas
General Secretary
A New and United Guyana
