Minister Indar parroting President Jagdeo
Mar 05, 2025
By GHK Lall
Kaieteur News- It is delightful to note that the Hon. Minister of Public Works, Dr. Deodat Indar, has recovered his voice. It’s a big development. It is a bigger development that he still has the interest and energy to hold onto the tunic of the even more Hon. President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo. The issue is shabby public works and poorer oversight by the Ministry of Public Works, where Dr. Indar is a kingpin. How he could take his eyes away from business is what baffles me. So much that engages, so much to straighten out, and there is Minister Indar laying a good licking on contractors for their squalid records with projects awarded to them from taxpayers’ money.
President Jagdeo jumped on the bad business that is not cleaned up and corrected at the Public Works Ministry. Score a four for the verbal slasher. Everything was hunky-dory (in good PPP shape), only for him to lash out at the ministry and the men working under it. I have publicly warned senior minister, Dr. Juan Edghill to stick to the spiritual. He responded with the back of his hand: the spiritual, when the commercial and financial are in full swing? C’mon no Guyanese is that stupid, that saintly. I can be counted among the stupid, ministah; the saintly is for other nonhuman forces to decide. Like the good man of God that he is, Archbishop Edghill was all for giving tardy contractors more time, more space, and more pardons. I commend him.
Now there was the big man railing about shoddy contract work. Then the little big man jumped on that bandwagon in his best imitation of follow the leader. Blindly. Excruciatingly embarrassingly. Where was Minister Indar before? What business was distracting him from the one that is a huge part of his official portfolio? Minister Edghill now finds himself in a bind, the odd man out in this threesome of white shoe do-gooders. If he were to come out with his own slaps and kicks, through oral castigations of delinquent contractors and their deplorable performance, he would look late to the game. Worse still, the man of the cloth risks registering as lame as a one-legged thoroughbred entered in one of those horseracing derbies in Berbice. His junior minister outran and outflanked him. Although it is still all for one in the PPP machinery, it is now everyman for himself. Whatever the women are doing, that is their business. Hopefully, government business.
Strange how times and people change in this beautiful Guyana that is still ours. When regular citizens criticize bad works and feces-infested governance, the PPP Government brigade savages. Critics. Naysayers. Self-appointed experts. PNC operators. For their edification, it was President Jagdeo, who most recently condemned unacceptable public works, not people like me. It was Minister Indar who hauled off and ‘dig a lash’ at slothful, self-enriching contractors. It isn’t those that leaders find offensive because they speak out. It would inspire if government apologists were to find the courage and integrity to inform the esteemed Bharrat Jagdeo that he slipped (tardy and sloppy) re contractors ‘timeliness and quality of their deliverables. Apologists shudder and shrink, so I tell him myself. Late talk, cheap talk. I interpret this as government’s backhanded admission that outspoken conscientious observers were right all along about incompetence and inefficiency? Could be government leadership’s sly way of slipping a noose around the necks of contractors who cannot produce, then congratulating themselves for their slickness?
What are leaders, and ministers really about? Dropping the hammer on ministry and awardees in public, but having a good laff privately during their secret mini-congresses? Poor public works performance is one component of corruption: more time, more money. Shabby works means supplementary funding, with all kept in the PPP family. It is that big, long circle of corruption that Transparency International broadcast to the world about Guyana. Nobody should forget that most accurate of phrases used by Transparency, which is: “political and business elites” running their lucrative rackets in this country and holding it captive. It is a sad state when a country that needs the best of leaders ends up with street corner actors.
Let this be said, though I don’t know if it is any consolation for mistreated and longsuffering Guyanese taxpayers. They are getting something for their budget and procurement dollars. Matters have covered the map. President Ali had his moment in the sun; he made it shine before dawn with his diatribe that spanked contractors, ministers, and others. VP Jagdeo joined in the fun with laments about shoddy works. Minister Indar is late to the sport, but belted out his bit about unsanctioned work days. Why was he not on the job all the time? What happened to his eyesight and foresight before? He should be given an award for being Dr. Hindsight. Considering all this, I place this challenge before citizens: in looking at Drs. Ali, Jagdeo, and Indar and public works, what do Guyanese have? Bollywood, Hollywood, or a Hong Kong Kung-Fu epic? I welcome anyone reporting me to the ERC.
(Minister Indar parroting President Jagdeo)
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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