Man’s inhumanity to man

To every man this is taught: Thou art one with this Universal Being, and as such, every soul that exists is your soul; and every body that exists is your body; and in hurting anyone, you hurt yourself, in loving anyone, you love yourself. As soon as a current of hatred is thrown outside, whosoever else it hurts, it also hurts yourself; and if love comes out of you, it is bound to come back to you.

Swami Vivekananda

Before we begin, we draw attention to two matters of public interest. The first relates to news reports indicating that the President of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, has been impeached and removed from office because of his alleged links to the collapsed Ueno Bank as well as the government’s handling of the crisis. The bank accounts of millions of customers were reportedly frozen, resulting in widespread public protests. Following his removal, Peña was placed under house arrest, and criminal investigations have been initiated against him. The Ueno debacle reminds us of the CLICO collapse in Guyana in 2009 where the National Insurance Scheme lost G$5.6 billion in investment. It was not until 2016 that the Government intervened and issued debentures for this amount to restore the financial viability of the Scheme. However, no one was held accountable for this loss, and it is the taxpayer who is repaying through the servicing of the public debt the amount borrowed via the debentures.

The second matter is about the appointment of members of the Public Procurement Commission to monitor public procurement and the related procedures to ensure that the procurement of goods and services as well as the execution of works is conducted in a fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective manner. The selection of members is the responsibility of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and must be ratified by at least two-thirds of the voting members of the National Assembly. The Commission is required to function independently and impartially and discharge its responsibilities fairly. In principle, no one should be appointed a member if he/she is a member of a political party or is closely associated with that party, and it is the duty of the PAC to ensure that these requirements are scrupulously followed. The life of the last Commission ended in July 2025.

Today is the deadline for the submission of applications for membership to the Commission. It is our sincere hope that the PAC will break from the past and select the best qualified and experienced persons from the list of applicants. Despite the Commission being a part-time one, the salaries of members of the past two Commissions were in excess of one million dollars, not to mention benefits such as duty-free concession, and travel, entertainment and telephone allowances. We hope that this anomaly will corrected in this round of appointment.

Now for today’s article. We apologise for not being gender-neutral in deciding on the caption. We tried hard to find alternative words to describe what we are about to write, but we consider the above title most appropriate. We also tried hard to remain calm and silent in the middle of the storm. However, we can longer restrain ourselves in the midst of the alleged extreme cruelty, harassment and discrimination meted out against a fellow citizen and his family. History will condemn me for not adding my voice of protest.

Mr. Azruddin Mohamed, apart from being the duly elected Opposition Leader, is a brother and a son like our own. We grieve for him, his father, his mother and his sisters. Whatever allegations have been made against him, Mr. Mohamed has not been convicted in a court of law. He is therefore undeserving of the cruel and inhumane treatment meted out against him. Even if he was convicted, the way he is being treated in his prison cell at Lusignan detention facility breaches all international norms and conventions.

We note the explanations provided by the prison authorities. We, however, consider Mr. Mohamed’s handwritten note from his prison cell listing over 30 violations of a prisoner’s right against inhumane treatment, far more credible. If one were to carry out a survey of the level of trust that citizens have of the police and prison authorities, it could very well be found that the vast majority of Guyanese do not believe that these two organisations can be trusted to protect citizens’ rights.

Some years ago, I met Mr. Mohamed’s father while visiting a friend in Houston, East Bank Demerara. He reminded me that we played cricket against each other in the early 1970s. The senior Mohamed has always struck me as a gentle, kind, humble and simple person. The late Yesu Persaud also spoke well of him in terms of his philanthropic activities.

Perhaps, the Opposition Leader’s only crime so far has been the formation of political party to contest the 2025 elections. His decision to do so has infuriated the ruling party which derives its support overwhelming from one section of the Guyanese community. That party believes that anyone from that section who chooses to exercise his/her constitutional right, whether to form a political party, supports a party other than the ruling party, or is a civil society activist making justified criticisms relating to governance, transparency and accountability, must be treated as public enemy number one, and as such the person is met with full force and hostility of the State machinery, including State-owned media, and the police and prison authorities.

Only recently, I attended an Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative meeting at which participants expressed serious concerns about the narrowing of civil society space. It is also very much regrettable that the ruling party views citizens with a binary lens. If you are not supportive of it, then you are against the party and by extension you belong to the opposition camp, unless in the midst of wrongdoing you choose to be a bystander sitting on the fence! It is sad to note that there is no room for independent-minded citizens to make a contribution to the public good and the public interest!

Let me relate my own experience to highlight the above. Since I returned to Guyana from the United Nations in February 2012 and became involved in the work of Transparency Institute Guyana Inc. (TIGI) and a columnist with the Stabroek News, I have been under constant personal attack for the stance I take on issues of public importance. These attacks and vilifications were mainly from the State-owned/controlled media as well as from letter writers and bloggers most of whom were paid out of the resources of the State, especially during the period 2012 to 2015.

Matters came to a head in the run-up to the 2023 Local Government elections when the General Secretary of the ruling party launched a vicious attack on me containing words that were clearly defamatory. Among the statements he made about me are: (i) I was Auditor General for eight of the ten years when there were no audited accounts; (ii) I did not resign and therefore I lacked integrity; (iii) I collected salary for doing nothing; (iv) I remained in position in a “non-functional” Audit Office; and (v) I was silent in my criticisms of government during the period the APNU+AFC was in office.

Of course, all of these are false statements calculated to discredit me in the eyes of the public and to destroy my reputation. If the Audit Office was non-functional, who was it that audited over 200 non-Central Government entities comprising public enterprises, statutory bodies, local government agencies, municipalities, trade unions and foreign-funded projects? Who was it that audited the Bank of Guyana, Guyana Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank, the Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary-Agricultural Development Authority, University of Guyana, Transport and Harbours Department, Georgetown City Council, Georgetown Sewerage and Water Commissioners, UNDP and IDB projects, the 65 NDCs and the 30 trade unions, among others? Who was it that verified the computation of superannuation benefits of public servants and teachers, including those of judges?

If I did not have a work job, as contended by the General Secretary, would not the same be said of over 200 staff members, including the current Auditor General who was there when I joined the Audit Office in December 1987? And what of the current Minister Finance and the late Commissioner-General of the Guyana Revenue Authority Khurshid Sattaur both of whom were appointed Deputy Auditor General within a year or two of my appointment as Auditor General? The number two in the Audit Office, who is the spouse of the Minister, also joined the Audit Office a little earlier.

As regards the false statement that I remained silent during the APNU+AFC Administration, a simple Google search would have shown that I had written 220 articles during this period, 27 of them were on corruption-related issues. It is public knowledge what happened when I sought judicial intervention in relation to the defamatory statements the General Secretary made about me. To borrow the words of the respected late Guyanese journalist, Ricky Singh, ‘the shame is greater than the victory’.

I close with the following two highly relevant quotes. The second quote is a stark reminder of the dangers of remaining silent in the midst of wrongdoing.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out