Dear Editor,
It is incumbent upon me to utter ‘more than a few remarks’ regarding the ongoing and relentless outpourings concerning President Irfaan Ali’s ‘supposed’ ill-gotten ranch. I dare say that the ‘poor’ president is being left to fend for himself, when his appointed and volunteering apologists are simply doing reactionary janitorial work.
For example, hardly a defence is seen in the PPP’s mainstream Chronicle and ‘mouth piece’ appointee, Minister Kwame McCoy, who is now most ineffectual in his hackneyed ‘cussing out’ mode, and is mostly ignored. His red-herrings are vacuous and most trite. So too are the verbose pieces from recent convert, Freddie Kissoon, and his antipodean existence with Kwame is the stuff of farce.
Here is what I mean.
In the 15th April, 2019, issue of Kaieteur News, Freddie ‘anti PPP’ Kissoon, in “Guyana Politics: I feel personally insulted by Irfaan Ali’s Press Conference,” this PPP hater said that “I feel personally insulted by what Irfaan Ali did. (and) “If I had any respect for Irfaan Ali, he has lost it. If I had any admiration for Irfaan, he has lost it. (Why?) I am referring to his recent press conference in which he appointed Kwame McCoy to direct (his campaigns and press conferences).”
To Freddie, “Irfaan has gone mad. The gods have destroyed him. Of course, the gods rendered him incompetent before sending him off to Hades. How perceptive is Ali? The question is he isn’t at all.” (Wow! Freddie at his infantile best!)
So, where is Freddie now? He is sandwiched between the said Irfaan Ali as president, and an elevated Kwame, who mandates what Freddie has to write. By the way, this man even was offended by the very visage and physiognomy of Kwame McCoy, as he opined that “Of all the ‘lovely faces and bodies and talent in the PPP, Irfaan chose McCoy to host his press conference. (and) In doing so, I feel personally insulted by Irfaan (as) McCoy (with his bad looks and pygmy IQ) was charged for attacking me after his co-defendant, Jason Abdulla gave a confession statement to the police, implicating McCoy. (And yet) Magistrate Judy Latchman freed McCoy.”
Let me take it from here now, as this contradicts the man Kwame himself and whatever he is trying to say about Azruddin Mohamed, the opposition leader. I offer that Kwame is a most scandal-plagued, and discredited figure himself. Kwame has devolved into the perfect ‘skip bin’ for the collective obloquy of all sorts from all Guyana, and is qualified to continue receiving opprobrium directed at the PPP/C.
Look at this man who his berating Azruddin Mohamed. I mean his ‘Past Criminal Convictions’ are well established, and can be accessed too.
Take the Mark Benschop Assault Conviction that goes back to March 2017, when a magistrate’s court found McCoy guilty of assaulting the political activist during a 2011 incident. Benschop had been filming a property owned by McCoy when he was attacked, and McCoy was criminally fined by the court.
Now to Freddie Kissoon and the Faecal Assault Trial, where McCoy was arrested and put on trial alongside other PPP/C activists for a notorious 2010 incident where a bucket of ‘preserved-for-the purpose’ faeces was thrown into the face of Freddie Kissoon. Literally, this still stinks and may perennially keep oozing odoriferously.
Then it was McCoy who wrote the invoice for the individuals to be paid as ‘ghost writers,’ for the ‘pack of 13’ persons, who were part of what was known as the New Media Unit at the then and Office of the President (OP), and who were receiving $22,000 every fortnight, through NCN, before the PPP/C was ousted in 2015. I will not elaborate on this, as my point is well-made already.
Getting to the Chronicle itself, I see that in the period of June 30 to July 8, a mere ten letters were published in the entity, and very few focused on the issue of the moment, and those few lacked ‘content to convince’ any one, and so they did not deliver President Ali. He is still in a miasmic quagmire.
I dare say that the duty of any high-paying government-appointed media and communications directorates, during accusations, requires ensuring accurate public records, protecting the integrity of state institutions, and effectively combating disinformation. This mandate strictly involves facilitating access to official information and addressing allegations through transparent, fact-based communications, rather ‘counter accusations’ and ‘fabrication.’
I think Freddie Kissoon was and still is right when in his “Freddie Kissoon replies to Randy Persaud,” (Dec 27, 2009), he fumed that “It is nothing but pure, unadulterated hypocrisy on the part of … Persaud to seek to lecture the Kaieteur News editor when they are both columnists for one of the world’s most obscene and gutter newspapers, the Chronicle.
The Chronicle is a newspaper that has been brought into the gutter by this (PPP/C) regime. Under the Burnham and Hoyte Government such a descent into journalistic miasma would not have taken place… Persaud writes for the Chronicle but don’t read it. Who reads the Chronicle? Not me!
So now, it was left belatedly to an incoherent President Ali to strongly deny the many and massive allegations that have left him in a toxic and suspicious halo. He garbled and stuttered his sophistry concerning the multi-billion-dollar valuation, stating that “… the actual size and value of the farm are “not even half” of what the opposition claims. He maintains that he has owned the farm since long before he assumed the Presidency in 2020.
Ali asserts that the estate was funded transparently via substantial loans from the local banking system and that all of his assets, liabilities, and investments are fully declared.”
I close by asking the PPP/C ‘Media Moguls’, namely Kwame and his paid cohorts, to seek purification of the President. He badly needs it.