Any breaches of the law must be penalized - Ramjattan

Any breaches of the law must be penalized - Ramjattan
June 25, 2009 | By knews | Filed Under News

Now that there is a functioning Auditor General’s Office, the reports highlight the many monumental breaches of the law and the patently corrupt acts.
There must now be major reforms, both administratively and institutionally, which by necessity must involve penalizing those who commit breaches of the law and acts of corruption, said Khemraj Ramjattan.
The Chairman of the Alliance For Change (AFC) yesterday told this newspaper, “Under the PNC regime Guyana did not have a functional Auditor General, except for the latter years of Desmond Hoyte. The PPP used to criticise this most vigorously….It used to be champions for financial probity and scrutiny.”

He noted that today under the PPP, the Auditor General is there doing a good job and discovering massive corruption and “what does the PPP as Government and Party do and say in light of these revelations of monumental breaches of the law and patently corrupt acts?… It simply consoles itself with the fact that there is now an A.G. who investigates, as against the PNC time when there was none.”
This is most unsatisfactory to the Guyanese people, and is an insult to them, Ramjattan added.
He said that this PPP is no different from the then maligned PNC and does nothing to remedy the obvious causes of corruption, even when the AG and the Public Accounts Committee forcefully recommend what has to be done.

“We are stuck in the same boat.”
According to Ramjattan, Guyanese are getting fed up with President Jagdeo as leader of Government and Ramotar as leader of the Party for their intransigence. “When a little Indian or Negro boy thief even a mango to feed himself, this Government wants him locked up.”
He cited the utterances of Minister Clement Rohee who recently announced, “Larceny must not be condoned no matter what the circumstances.”
“Yet when millions and even billions are stolen from the government coffers by officials in the hierarchy, that is economics; not larceny or robbery.”