Jagdeo on breaches, accountability - Pt 3

Sep 14, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

(Kaieteur News) – Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo is a lonely figure; worthy of pity. It’s extended. He is that saddest of leaders: a caricature for lost causes. Breach procurement laws and regs and there will be consequences. Not one attendee in that Arthur Chung Convention Centre suite blanched in fright, or hung their head from guilt-infested conscience. Not one made a mental note to himself or herself. Why should they? Heard before. Same as before. Nothing changes on the corruption front in Guyana. PPP Gov’t Guyana. Billions for procurement. There will be leakages; accommodations made for human nature. It’s bad taste to let those billions go to waste. Billions generate millions of temptations, slightly less opportunities. The outcomes make Dr. Jagdeo tear up, actually cry. Who can be so callous, as not to feel a pang of sorrow? I do.

I had warned him: rope in comrades’ thieveries. Scale down their obscene accumulations of wealth. Wealth defying explanation, reason, wage arithmetic. Jagdeo snarled, cursed. He did; or surrogates lunged. Now he’s all remorse, wet eyed. What did he expect when the standard recruitment policy, hiring criteria, of the PPP Gov’t contain three prongs? Only hire, welcome, and associate with people who are corrupt. Or inclined towards corruption. Or have no problems with corruption. Or won’t say a word, nor wag a reproving finger, when they are surrounded by corrupt practices and corrupt people. What did he expect? Why is he lamenting? When that was the PPP architecture and apparatus erected? Reality now hangs over his head. From high-level activity in agriculture to that tragic plunge into aquatic depths. Monstrosity and mystery on a wide expanse of land; murder and misery on a vast expanse of water. If three men, honest toilers operating under duress, can be charged with murder, the noun belongs. But not on their heads. Not on the heads of two ministers. Murder rightfully belongs higher, where ownership should rightly reside. It’s all part of the corruption that Jagdeo moaned, but danced around.