Cayman Islands premier was ousted following a no-confidence vote so why not Rohee?

Dear Editor,
News out of the Cayman Islands that lawmakers there passed a vote of no confidence on Tuesday ousting embattled Premier McKeeva Bush from office one week after he was arrested on suspicion of corruption, has many Guyanese everywhere asking: If it can happen in the Cayman Islands, why not Guyana?

Well, not necessarily a no-confidence vote against President Donald Ramotar, even though his attitudinal approach over the last year to pervasive corruption in government leaves much to be desired, but against Home Affairs Minister, Mr Clement Rohee.

Wikipedia defines a no-confidence vote thus: “A motion of no confidence is primarily a statement or vote, which states that a person in a superior position – be it government, managerial, etc. – is no longer deemed fit to hold that position.

“This may be based on said person falling short in some respect, failing to carry out obligations, or making choices that other members feel are detrimental. In law, a motion of no confidence (alternatively vote of no confidence, censure motion, no-confidence motion, or (unsuccessful) confidence motion) is a parliamentary motion which when passed would demonstrate to the head of state that the elected parliament no longer has confidence in (one or more members of) the appointed government.”

Now, based on that definition – and there are many others out there – what the Guyana Parliament has said when it passed the no-confidence vote against Mr Rohee was that, as the highest decision-making forum in the land, it wants the Head of State to know that the ‘elected Parliament no longer has confidence in one of the members of the government.’ Basically, the vote targets Mr Rohee, but the message is intended for President Ramotar.

So Mr Rohee does not necessarily have to violate any standing rules of the House to warrant a no-confidence vote; all he has to do is lose the confidence of the House, and that is it.

In the case of Mr Bush, he was arrested on suspicion of corruption, and while he has vehemently denied the charge, it is the notion that mere suspicion has been sufficient grounds for his arrest. He was released on bail until February, pending the possible filing of criminal charges against him, and while authorities there have reportedly declined to give specific details of the investigation they said it included allegations of theft and misuse of a government credit card.

In Guyana, we have multiple cases of clear-cut corruption, yet not one person has been tried and convicted. A police constable arrested Mr Bush, but not one police officer in Guyana has ever done anything like this in Guyana, despite blatant cases of corruption and theft. In fact, the Police Commissioner openly supported Mr Rohee during the COI hearings into the Linden killings, and a senior officer said it would be career-suicide to openly criticize Mr Rohee, clearly denuding the police force of its independence from the executive branch.

In Mr Rohee’s no-confidence case, it was his failure since becoming Home Affairs Minister to provide an acceptable policy oversight for the police force, starting with police reforms, which arguably have resulted in the police force engaging in brutality and excessive use of firepower against unarmed citizens.

Nevertheless, one now-retired divisional commander reportedly confronted the late Police Commissioner, Henry Greene, during a senior officers’ administrative meeting about other senior officers being seen driving luxury cars belonging to questionable characters in society.
Nothing ever came of that.

Then the police force became the target of an Audit Office probe when reports surfaced that one  divisional commander had not received money from the $90M in subvention towards officers’ meals and transportation during the 2011 election. The unspent portion of the money was only returned after questions were raised about the subvention.

And in a Stabroek News article, ‘Discrepancies in police force accounts put under scrutiny,‘ (Wednesday, December 12), it was reported that discrepancies in accounting records of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) came in for scrutiny from members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday, December 10, when a Home Ministry team of four, led by Permanent Secretary Angela Johnson, appeared before the committee to face questions over the discrepancies which were highlighted in the Auditor General’s 2010 report.

So, it is not merely a matter of Mr Rohee’s failure to ensure the police force is run as a professional law enforcement institution, but that the institution itself is a cesspool of corruption.

But while concerned Guyanese can pretty much understand President Ramotar’s dilemma in not wanting to remove Mr Rohee, because he is a political appointee serving a political purpose of executing the ruling party’s agenda via the force, the issue has the potential for worsening, because a corrupt government and a corrupt police force are a recipe for the evolution of a dictatorship.

This is what the no-confidence vote against Mr Rohee is seeking to avert, because it is now obvious to Guyanese everywhere that President Ramotar is pretty much executing an agenda that places a premium on the PPP retaining power at all costs, including heavy financial costs to Guyanese taxpayers.

It will be up to the public and the media to keep pressuring the President and his party to comply with the voters’ request on November 28, 2011, to work with APNU and the AFC. Failing this, then the next no-confidence vote could be in 2016, and could be politically fatal for the PPP.

Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin

For more on this story go to:

http://www.stabroeknews.com/2012/opinion/letters/12/20/cayman-islands-premier-was-ousted-following-a-no-confidence-vote-so-why-not-rohee/