Category: Letters to the editor

By Christopher Ram & Associates – August 16, 2024

Following concerns expressed about the reliability of the records of the NIS and the mounting number of complaints against the body, the Government announced several initiatives to clear the backlog while Budget Speech 2024 claimed that the Government will offer eligible persons with between 700 and 749 contributions a one-off grant.

Properly understood, the one-off grant is nothing more than the current legal framework provides. It has not addressed an outdated, harsh and unfair arrangement. In the Speech, the Minister also referred to the 14,000 claims outstanding at August 2020 which had been resolved. Our experience tells a less positive story. Here are a few examples.

You will recall that we met in November 2023, after the Court had ruled that the National Insurance Scheme pay an NIS pension to a 73-year-old former employee of Toolsie Persaud Limited. Apparently, under pressure from the Government, the NIS appealed the decision and on 26 January of this year, the Full Court of the High Court referred the matter back to the Trial Judge. The matter is still pending while Mr. Zainul is deprived of a modest pension for which he contributed for over decades. Mr. Zainul is with us again today.

The other person here with us today is Ms. Julia Clarke, aged sixty-eight who, according to the records of the NIS, has 739 contributions – eleven short of the 750 to qualify for an NIS pension. Ms. Clarke disputes the poorly kept records of the NIS, providing evidence that her employment with one employer alone, qualifies her for a pension and not a one-off grant. Like Mr. Zainul, Ms. Clarke submitted to the NIS copies of her pay slips.

Sadly, these are not isolated cases. We have been trying to help another person who worked with the Special Constabulary in the late seventies, but the Special Constabulary cannot locate records which they had once admitted to having. And of course, the poor man cannot find one person, let alone two, who can give a sworn statement that they worked together at the Constabulary some forty years ago. Like so many employers from the state interventionist era, the employers no longer exist.

As a final example, a case was also brought to our attention where persons willing to sign affidavits were scared out of doing so after being cautioned about their failing memories.

Notwithstanding the promises by the Administration, the letters in the press indicate a continuing high level of public dissatisfaction with the NIS, largely due to past inefficiencies and failures by both the NIS and employers, as its former General Manager Patrick R. Martinborough admitted in his book The NIS in Guyana – Its Conception, Development and Future.

Those associated with the NIS and its administration must recognise that the payment of a pension is less about insurance and more about social security while the receipt of a pension is often the difference between poverty and extreme poverty. The ‘floodgate’ argument used in the Zainul matter is unsupported by facts and completely ignores the real human cost to workers who have contributed for decades.

It is incumbent on the Administration to restore public confidence in the NIS by making it more transparent, accountable and responsive to members of the public generally and to contributors and claimants in particular. The conditions for long term benefits under the Scheme have not changed since the Scheme was established in 1969.

Insistence on strict, inflexible and outdated rules which seek to transfer the responsibility for the maintenance of records from the NIS to workers is unlawful, unreasonable, unjust and inhumane. After 55 years, it is more than time for the Government to commission a comprehensive review with a view to modernising the Scheme, providing adequate security and fairer outcomes.

The advent of oil has provided the Scheme with both a financial and actuarial windfall that allows for more generous benefits, and to address inequities. We call on the Administration to immediately publish its Annual Reports and Financial Statements for the years 2022 and 2023 and the long overdue Actuarial Report. It is ironic that the NIS, which holds contributors to strict standards and legal compliance, does not think that such standards apply to itself.

We implore the Government to Immediately withdraw its appeal against the court’s decision in the Zainul matter and to review cases like Julia Clarke’s in an enlightened, humane manner. We also call for the immediate implementation of a sliding scale or partial pension system for persons who have made more than 500 contributions, the equivalent of ten years.

The NIS is one issue that can be objectively and impartially addressed outside of political affiliations or legal technicalities. It is about our values as a society and our commitment to those who have worked hard for their entire productive lives. We cannot stand idly by while our fellow citizens, who have contributed so much, are left without support in their golden years.

I want to show my personal commitment to the cause by making a small token of goodwill to Ms. Clarke and Mr. Zainul by donating to each of them on an ongoing basis, the equivalent of an NIS Old Age Pension out of my NIS and Old Age Pension.

I will be happy to answer your questions.

Christopher Ram
16 August 2024

Dear Editor,

Pension Funds, Institutional and even small shareholders  in Banks DIH Limited have been thrown into turmoil as a result of the arrogance and inexcusable insensivity of the directors of the company, the legacy of Guyana’s pioneering entrepreneur Peter D’Aguiar. For months, those shareholders and the public were confused by the decision of the directors to make the food and beverage giant into a private company, away from public scrutiny. To achieve this Machiavellian objective, shareholders of the company were expected to exchange their shares in the company for an equivalent number of shares in a newly established holding company, Banks DIH Holdings Inc.

Then followed a lawsuit brought by the two companies against the Guyana Securities Council – the Regulator  of public companies – for its failure or refusal to delist the old operating company and list the new company as the public company. The Court rejected the application and ordered the companies to provide the Council with the information it required within a specified timeline and a deadline for a decision by the Council to respond to the companies.

Earlier reports in the press indicated that the Court ruled that the Securities Council was in its right to demand information on the transaction to enable the Council to make a proper decision. The date set out in the Court’s decision was 8 September 2024. There is no public information that the Council has given the companies its approval.

Yet, in surprise announcements in the national newspapers on Thursday and Friday of this week, the companies published two advertisements: one to shareholders and the other to “To whom it may concern” respectively. While the notices are confusing in their details, what is clear is that the directors have deemed the shares held by every holder of shares in the beverage company to be invalid, i.e., until a shareholder exchanges her/his current shares for new ones, those shares have no value. In other words, shareholders are deprived of their property which they thought the Guyana Constitution protects.

It is true that the views of the minority cannot prevail over a decision by the majority, but Company Law has made gigantic strides in the protection of minority shareholders, including a buyout of dissident shareholders. But I do find it hard to believe that the directors of both companies are so simple-minded to think that an exchange of an equal quantity of shares between companies carries an equivalent value. Think of it: even countries which engage in barter use value as the medium of exchange.

To confirm that frightening situation, the Guyana Stock Exchange, in a publication in the press of August 3 has suspended trading in Banks DIH shares with grave implications for all shareholders. I think it most unfortunate that the Guyana Securities did not respond publicly to the initial advertisement by the company which not only sought to preempt the decision of the Council but also seems to be in contempt of the Court’s ruling in the Council’s favour.

The decision by the two companies is irrational, abhorrent, unlawful, contemptuous and unconstitutional. Our country is replete with instances where persons refuse to act even when their interest is threatened. This is evidently such a case, and shareholders cannot let this pass.

In the more general to whom it may concern notice, emphasis seems to be placed on. She held interest or shares held on lean by institutions, requiring such institutions to return the share certificates to facilitate the issuance of the new shares.

It might have escaped attention that that was effectively backdating a deprivation of property guaranteed by the constitution of Guyana.

To add to the confusion, this Saturday’s edition of the Stabroek news, in addition to the republication of the general notification by the Company concerning shares held in in trust and on lien the Guyana Stock exchange Announced that in the circumstances of Banks DIH holdings Inc. issuing a newspaper notices to the effect that banks GIS Limited shares will no longer be valid effective July 19, 2024, stock exchange has suspended trading in BIH shares. It probably comes as no surprise to everyone, but to the directors and officers of BANKS DIH Limited, that the confusion brought about by the irrational decision whereby the beverage and hospitality giant is converted into private company whose shareholdings are transferred to a new hauling company.

Dear Editor,

At the request of the Ukrainian President, the Swiss government organised a Peace Summit last weekend. The Summit, attended by around 100 countries and multilateral organisations from around the world, had as its purpose, finding a path to peace in Ukraine which for over two years has been battling to repel the Russian invasion of its territory.

Attendees included leading countries of the world such as Brazil, Canada, France, France, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UK and the USA, as well as organisations such as the EU, OAS and the United Nations. Russia which had opposed the idea of such a Summit was not invited and there is no indication that its enablers China, Iran and North Korea were invited. For completeness, it is noted that several of these named  countries did not sign the Summit’s closing statement. That however is not entirely relevant to the purpose of this letter.

Guyana was not among the countries attending the Summit, meaning that it was a missed opportunity by the Government to engage in bilateral discussions with other countries on the Venezuelan threat to Guyana. Guyana must recognise that no amount of military spending will allow the country to repel any invasion by that country. In as much that we were impressed by the US fighter jets flying across Guyana as a show of strength and support, Guyana’s best guarantee in its controversy with Venezuela is to canvas and garner diplomatic support of countries that matter. Guyana shares with Ukraine and Taiwan the danger of being overrun by a neighbouring bully.

The country has not one but two foreign ministers and has recently made two diplomatic appointments to Europe. The failure must therefore be seen not as unavailability of personnel but of policy and intent. Indeed, having delegated to his Vice President the task of managing the fallout from the US announcement of sanctions against its former friends and members, President Ali should have been free to represent Guyana at the Summit.  

In my view, Guyana should be seeking membership of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (the Rio Treaty) signed in 1947. The essential features of this Treaty are similar to those of the NATO Agreement signed in 1949, both providing for mutual defence, collective security and the peaceful resolution of disputes. Venezuela is a member of the Treaty having reactivated its membership in 2019 after a withdrawal in 2012. It may object to Guyana’s application, but we must at least try.

Christopher Ram

A book review by Christopher Ram – May 28, 2024

Introduction

This is the sixth and final part of the review of Moses Nagamootoo’s autobiographical account of his political career starting in 1961 until the fall of the Coalition Government in 2020, of which he was the Prime Minister.

Under the title The New Normal, chapter 23 traces the history of the relationship between Guyanese of African and Indian descent, claiming that there was racial discrimination of both sides of the major ethnic divide which existed long before the 1953 elections. The chapter notes as an incontestable fact, that Indians suffered from racial violence, discrimination and alienation under the PNC rule. It highlights his parents’ choice to marry under Christian rites, then predominantly Afro Guyanese,  even as they continued their Hindu religious practices, and the role and contribution of the Afro village nurse and schoolteachers. Controversially, he sees as a response to the “anti-Indian dilemma,” the formation of the Indian Peoples’ Revolutionary Associates (IPRA) by Moses Bhagwan, described as Jagan’s successor-in-waiting, and the teaming-up of Dr. Fenton Ramsahoye, Doodnauth Singh, Ayube McDoom and Gunraj Kumar to form the Guyana Anti-Discrimination Movement.

Burnham policies and elections

According to Nagamootoo, the import substitution policies of Forbes Burnham, the struggle for trade union recognition by sugar workers, and the closure of the Cuban rice market, formed part of the racially charged backdrop for distrust between the two communities. In this context he also recalls the transfer of a murder charge from the mainly Indo-Guyanese Corentyne to the mainly Afro-Guyanese Georgetown in which Arnold Rampersaud was charged with the murder of an Afro-Guyanese policeman, increasing the odds of a conviction. Nagamootoo gives little or no recognition to the role of the multiracial WPA and Dr. Walter Rodney in helping to secure the acquittal of Rampersaud.

Demonstrating the ethnic cleavage in electoral politics in Guyana, Nagamootoo writes that the PNC received just over 40% of the votes cast in 1992, the same it got in 1964 when transparent elections were last held. Similarly, the support for the PPP was also unchanged, while the WPA, whose activism had resulted in widespread multiracial support in its campaign against the PNC, and for a government of national unity, received little support in those elections.

The chapter closes with comments on the emergence of “resource nationalism” where corrupt management and appropriation of the wealth of countries by foreign companies have led to the intervention of the army. Yet, in the very next chapter, he writes of “misconceptions of and about the process that ended in the 2016 petroleum.”

The hardliners

Even as he looks forward in chapter 24, Nagamootoo reminds readers of the infamous “kith and kin”, and “slo fire, mo fire” comments by Desmond Hoyte, former President as well as Leader of the Opposition, as being both “irresponsible and repugnant”. Interestingly, the name Hoyte does not appear anywhere in the book, nor does Hamilton Greene. On the other hand, he notes that his own publication The Political Situation And The Way Forward In Guyana was consigned to the bonfire by PPP hardliners, and that when he suggested to Janet Jagan the possibility of Cheddi Jagan being buried or his ashes interred in the Botanical Gardens, her response was: “No, no Moses they will dig up his bones and drag them in the streets of Georgetown”.

On the issue of Constitutional Reform, the book notes the work of the Ramkarran Commission (1999) and Nigel Hughes Sub-committee on Constitutional Reform as having started a dynamic process, but which needs political will to achieve the necessary changes, especially for a possible government of national unity, a most unlikely prospect. Yet, he expresses, double-handedly, that President Ali would keep his many promises and beat back “the perception that he is just a figurehead in the leadership troika”, which possibly includes the Prime Minister.

Chapter 25 returns to internal PPP matters under the caption Crooked Selection Process, the purpose of which was to give a full explanation for his walking from the PPP. The chapter features a letter he wrote to the General Secretary of the party in response to an invitation for him to address the Executive Committee of the Party. There were clearly irreconcilable differences.

My take on the book

While truth is indeed of virtue, for those who occupy the political space, it hardly ever wins friends. In the case of Nagamootoo’s Dear Land of Guyana, nothing can be more truthful. Whether he intended it or not, he is particularly harsh on several persons, including those who came lately to the PPP, and those with whom he had differences. These, and others, should find this book of interest, if not comfort. Nagamootoo accuses the PPP of engaging in military training; of rigging internal elections; of destroying the dreams of its founder leader Cheddi Jagan; and has exposed a different side of the late Janet Jagan.

The book is a contribution to the country’s political history by a contemporary writer, in his style and as he sees himself. It is not without its controversies and might therefore have been expected to generate debate and response from the persons named, even if only to defend their reputation. That has not happened. If no one else, President Granger owes it to the nation to confirm or deny the role of the Americans in the conclusion of the 2020 elections debacle.

A book review by Christopher Ram – May 19, 2024

Introduction

Chapter 20 of the book is a celebration of the women in politics particularly beginning in 1961 when Nagamootoo joined the PPP as a youth in pre-independence Guyana. Three years later the PPP lost parliamentary control and executive power in the first proportional representation elections in Guyana, engineered and imposed by the UK government which led to the PNC and the United Force Coalition in 1964. Through a prolonged period of 28 years of PNC rule underpinned by rigged elections and the virtual collapse of the country’s economy, there is no extensive, critical review of that period in the book.

The chapter is titled Saga of Women’s Struggle and highlights the role played by women in the political development of the country, identifying as the first among the pioneers, founder member of the PPP Janet Jagan, the only woman President the country has ever had, Winifred Gaskin, Jane Phillip-Gay, Patricia Benn, Thelma Reece and Philomena Sahoye-Shury whose combative style earned her the soubriquet Fireball. The chapter is built around six distinct themes – the Burnham years; the symbols of struggle; exceptional women; the heroic figures; workers stage; and revolutionary changes – and identifies some of the standout women under each of those themes.

Foot soldiers but not leaders

A number of these women, including Shirley Edwards, Mitra Devi and Pauline Sukhai, had joined the PPP in their youth but are still around and recognisable by contemporary Guyanese. But by far, the two women most admired by Nagamootoo were Indra Chandrapal, who “along with three of her sisters were hauled away in their nightdresses by the police during the repressive 1973 elections”, and Gail Teixeira who has featured in every government since 1992 following her return from Canada where she had been involved in the anti-apartheid movement and had a close connection to the communist party of that country. Interestingly, Ms. Teixeira is the only person, let alone woman, with any leftwing bent to have featured in the top ten in the recent PPP Congress. Nagamootoo also accords recognition to several women of the Working People’s Alliance who were in the forefront of the resistance to the PNC, including Andaiye, Jocelyn Dow, Karen DeSouza, Bonito Harris-Bone and Vanda Radzik.

The chapter was essentially a reproduction of a feature article Nagamootoo wrote in Thunder, the PPP political organ in 2008 when he was still a leading member of that party. There is nothing to suggest that Nagamootoo’s high regard for the women identified is undiminished, or whether the regard and respect remains mutual to this day. For all the multitude of names of women who featured in the struggle, the book does not address the glass ceiling which has ensured that other than Janet Jagan, no woman from either the PPP or the PNC ever became their party’s leader or the country’s president. Women in Guyana politics might be great foot soldiers but unfit for higher leadership.

PPP’s practice of democracy

There is nothing that makes a political narrative more fascinating than the conspiratorial intrigue and conduct of party functionaries vying to outdo each other. Chapter 21 provides more than its fair share, with accusations of race, class, ambition and selfish commitment featuring prominently. Chapter 21 is titled Return of Authoritarians, describing Nagamootoo’s growing disenchantment with what he claims passed as internal democracy in the PPP after the death of its iconic leader Cheddi Jagan. In what might be considered a confusing conflation of key events from the formation of the PPP government in 1992 and the intrigue in the nomination process for the leadership of the party in subsequent elections, the chapter showcases the dominant role of Indian men over Afro Guyanese and women from the top position of presidential candidate, notwithstanding the generous rewards available for Afro Guyanese crossovers or the success of Kwame McKay over a capable Anil Nandlall in party elections. From his vantage point as an insider, Nagamootoo raises serious doubts about the quality of internal democracy, and the style and content of its governance, which characterised the PPP and which were projected onto the national stage.

The flipside of this, of course is the PPP twin, the People’s National Congress, which has never been led by a woman, or by an Indo Guyanese. This is why the almost all-powerful Dr. Roger Luncheon was considered ideologically suitable as the presidential candidate of the PPP but was disqualified on the grounds of his race (red but black); and why the outstanding Winston Murray could not win a leadership election in the PNC. While race and gender played a role in the PPP, a more compelling disqualification was any tendency to challenge “traditional mechanisms” and the party line. Nagamootoo complains that while he received the second highest number of votes at the party’s Congress in 1998 (behind Janet Jagan), he was “not given” enough votes to get on to the Executive Committee (Exco). That pattern continued in 2008 when popular youth leader Frank Anthony and he, who came in third and fifth respectively in the elections at Congress, could not find place in the smaller but more powerful Exco.

Jagdeo’s elevation and candidacy featured in the chapter with Nagamootoo describing him, with more than a little prescience, as “parroting the neoliberal language and the new capitalist doctrine.” Jagdeo, of course, was elected president in 1999 but suffered a decline in popularity following the reign of violence and terror in Guyana. Nagamootoo cites a poll by Dr. Vishnu Bisram which showed that 54% of PPP supporters preferred him as president compared to 31% for jagdeo and 20% for Ramkarran. a preference supported in an article by Freddie Kissoon in 2004. The chapter concludes by touching on the events leading up to the selection of the presidential candidate for 2011 but skipped critical details, such as the pre-determination of the results of internal voting or the non-accountability of the leadership for the financial operations of the party.

Dirty war

Chapter 22 is titled Racism and Revenge Politics and recounts the attacks Nagamootoo claims he suffered as the target of “a dirty war that had no imagination” waged by the PPP, with the most painful cut that he was a traitor and a neemackram, a Hindi word meaning ungrateful. Moreover, he was accused of improperly removing volumes of the Mirror newspapers to which he had contributed for decades. The chapter highlights his account of his achievements as Minister of Information in the PPP government, including the promotion of an independent media and seeking to introduce better governance, accountability and access to the State-owned media and easier access by Guyanese. The chapter closes with Nagamootoo’s failed efforts to have both presidents Granger and Ali clarify his entitlement to other benefits.

The sixth and final part will appear next week.