THE PPP HAS GROWN TIRED.

The long anticipated statement by the PPP in response to what I have
been writing is a disappointment. Instead of dealing with the issues
which I have highlighted, which are of great concern to the people of
Guyana and members and supporters of the PPP, it has chosen the well
worn path of personal abuse. The leadership of the PPP has lost its
will, its creative and dynamic impulses and the capacity of
constructive discourse. It is suffering from incumbency fatigue. It
has grown tired.

I am not the PPP’s problem. I am only the messenger. Since the PPP
chooses to attack the messenger, rather than deal with the message,
all the Guyanese electorate can look forward to in the future is more
of the political chaos that now prevails.

This was demonstrated by the recent fiasco in Parliament and petulance
over the local government and hydro legislation which amply exposes
their continuing and abysmal incapacity and failure to deal with
issues of national importance. The PPP is the Government. The
Government was elected to deliver services and programmes, not to gain
oneupmanship, make excuses and hurl epithets about the Opposition’s
behavior.

Now for some of the issues raised.

If my departure was as “inexplicable as it was sudden” and “feigning
great intolerance” I walked out and resigned, the PPP should explain
the statement set out below by Ms. Gail Teixeira prefaced with an
attached note that says – ” please find attached my mea culpa letter
which I drafted over the weekend……I will have no hesitation in
saying, once it will not  exacerbate the situation, that I have no
objection to it being shared with Comrade Ralph -:” “Dear Ralph, the
June 30 2012 Executive committee meeting will go down in our party
annals as a painful and emotional one……I regret that my remarks
offended you and I apologized then and I apologize in this letter
again to you…..I understand how frustrated you are about many
issues……”

Doesn’t “annals” mean historical records? Isn’t Ms. Teixeira  saying
that the meeting at which I was kicked out was one of the most painful
and emotional in the Party’s history? Doesn’t an acknowledgement that
I  was frustrated about many issues contradict the assertion that my
departure was inexplicable or sudden or that I feigned great
intolerance? If not, the public awaits the PPP’s analysis of what Ms.
Teixeira meant.

Ms. Teixeira sent a hard copy of the letter two or three weeks after
the event. It was declined, being too little, too late and tainted
with insincerity. That is what the PPP refers to as a “rude rejection”
of an apology.

Based on any rational understanding of what Ms. Teixeira meant, it
canonly be concluded that  when the PPP talked about “inexplicable,”
“sudden” and “feigning,” it was lying. The public, Party members and
supporters can therefore safely assume that there is much else in its
statement that it is lying about. The tactics of abuse and lies are
now well honed weapons in the armory of the PPP. The public could not
have forgotten that less than two weeks ago I exposed a false attempt
to accuse me of being responsible for the amendment to the Procurement
Bill to remove Cabinet no objection.

In relation to the “unacceptable revelations,” for which the PPP had
to dip sixteen years, as far back as 1997,  into its “annals”, I
invite the PPP to inform the public as follows: what were the
unacceptable revelations, who made them, what was the evidence
produced in support of them, were the “unacceptable revelations”
investigated, was I found guilty and if so, what sanctions were
imposed? If this information in its entirety is published, I publicly
declare that I will forego legal proceedings for defamation, in the
event that the revelations are defamatory.

If the  PPP has difficulty recalling the 1997 meeting with exactitude,
I have virtually verbatim notes of the meeting and would be willing to
share them. If the PPP refuses, then the only conclusion would be that
this is a cowardly attempt to smear me with the same type of lies
exposed above, from events as far back as sixteen years ago, which
involved a fierce, desperate and eventually successful effort to
defeat the nomination of me by Mrs. Janet Jagan as the presidential
candidate which she was persuaded to take herself against her better
judgment. That full story remains to be told and I will tell it.

I am accused of not raising the issue of corruption in my internal
Party statement advocating my candidacy for the presidential
nomination, the whole process of which was a charade designed to
glorify and to disguise a fait accompli. The PPP clearly forgot my
2010 article published in the Mirror and Chronicle calling for
additional steps to deal with corruption. It was probably because most
of the leadership do not read the Mirror and Chronicle that I wasn’t
kicked out then. How can an accusation of silence on the issue of
corruption stand scrutiny when I was literally kicked out of the PPP
because I raised the issue? And how can such an accusation be
sustained when in late 2010 or early 2011 in an interview on Plain
Talk, which was widely publicised, I said that dealing with corruption
would be my number one priority, if I received the Party’s nomination
and was elected?

In addition, the atmosphere of intolerance from the early 2000s, and
especially after 2006 , was so pronounced that no one, and that means
no one, including Mrs. Jagan who was publicly ridiculed by then
President Jagdeo, who attempted to denigrate her as a private citizen
when she criticised the withdrawal of government ads to Stabroek News,
dared to raise any criticism or negative issue unless one was prepared
for a tongue lashing. Several comrades courageously raised the issue
of corruption again and again but were always overwhelmed by hostility
or the next best thing – silence.

This was not the only reason. The leadership cabal ensured that the
issue of corruption was taken off the Party’s agenda. In response to
the growing cancer of corruption and public criticism, the PPP
established an Anti-Corruption Committee shortly after the 2001
elections,  led by Mrs. Janet Jagan. Its first act was to investigate
an allegation of corruption against a senior Party organizer. He was
found guilty. The General Secretary, Mr. Donald Ramotar, now
President, adamantly refused to dismiss him or to take any other
disciplinary steps against him. Mrs. Jagan refused to convene the
Anti-Corruption Committee again until disciplinary steps were taken
against the organiser. None  was ever taken. The Anti-Corruption
Committee never met again. The organizer has since been promoted. On
many occasions questions were publicly asked about this committee.
This is the explanation of why it became defunct.

The post-Cheddi Jagan PPP does not now have, nor has ever had, any
intention of dealing with corruption, either in its ranks or anywhere
else.

If what I say is not true, then let President Ramotar who in December,
2009, said that he was upset with the non-establishment of the Public
Procurement Commission (KN July 12 “A major Flip-Flop”), without
making any qualification about Cabinet no objection, prove me wrong by
fulfilling his implied promise to establish the PPC. I will join with
the rest of the country in hailing his self extrication from his
straight jacket and assertion of his independence.

The Party leadership is destroying the PPP and tarnishing its great
image and ideals which thousands of dedicated comrades have given much
to sustain. It has driven and is driving many comrades away in
circumstances which are deeply painful, which I will fully reveal in
my article next week. Instead of sharing responsibility for governance
with the Opposition, it is handing the country over in its entirety to
the Opposition on a platter. It should consider steps which will bring
back those comrades, retrieve its stature of the past and the respect
and esteem in which it has once been held by people everywhere. Unless
it does so, it will soon be out of office, still spitting and
sputtering abuse against the  messengers and everyone else, except
itself!

Statement issued by Ralph Ramkarran
Dated July 22, 2013
Georgetown.