Amidst allegations of gold smuggling involving a businessman and a government minister, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo has promised another crackdown. The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), however, says that this latest commitment by Jagdeo is the same as his previous assurances.
“As with all his previous promises of crackdowns and investigations, this one is just as empty. It is a typical Jagdeo political ploy meant to deflect and cover up. Guyanese are no longer fooled by it all,” the party said.
The party noted that following the explosive VICE News broadcasts in July 2022, which raised allegations of his involvement in bribe-taking and corruption, the VP “seemingly supported the public demand for the security agencies to launch an immediate investigation”.
However, the APNU lamented that three years since, there has been absolutely no investigation into allegations that Jagdeo used his tenant and friend, Chinese National Su Zhirong as a middleman to broker deals with Chinese companies for a kickback. There was no probe, the party said, despite Jagdeo’s penchant to call for those who break laws to face the consequences.
“In July last year, Jagdeo, in another gimmick, promised that government would crack down on the situation where most contracts were going to friends, families and favorites of the PPP government. He unconvincedly pretended that he just discovered that ‘certain families hogging the majority of contracts, while depriving others from benefitting.’ Of course, there has been no such crackdown. Our public procurement system has only gotten more lawless and rotten,” APNU said in a statement today.
Jagdeo promised yesterday that the government will be taking tougher actions to curb gold smuggling, but APNU said that committment would have been laughable had the loss of government revenue not been so massive.
“The pattern is therefore clear: Jagdeo’s politically-convenient calls for crackdowns and probes either never start or have delivered nothing, such as the investigation of the death of Adrianna Younge.
For Ali, Jagdeo and the PPP to fight corruption would first mean investigations of themselves as the main facilitators and beneficiaries. Only a change of government will facilitate a cleansing of the system and a return of the rule of law and accountability to the people,” the party concluded.
Jagdeo’s comments come on the heels of a video that has gone viral in which a gold dealer, Junior Baksh alleged that there is a conspiracy afoot that involves a government minister, generals of a foreign army, a prominent businessman and a relative of the president.
Baksh has since clarified in a statement that the interview containing these revelations was to be broadcast only if something had happened to him or if he had granted permission. He explained that, at the time, his life was under threat.
He added that no permission had been granted and that he is still alive, questioning the motives behind the video’s release.
The businessman is threatening legal action against the journalist with whom he had the interview and others who facilitated its broadcast.
