I should have sued Khurshid Sattaur for 50 billion dollars

AUGUST 14, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

My editor, Adam Harris said if you disagree that a person should hold the office he/she has then to avoid libel, put the following words in front; “It is my opinion.” I know the law is an ass so I am not going to argue with Adam but if I am the author of the column, then it is overtly clear that it has to be my opinion. Anyway, it is my opinion that Khurshid Sattaur should never have succeeded that giant of a public servant, Edgar Heyliger, as head of the country’s tax system. The Minister of Finance opined recently that the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) during the PPP Government was politically compromised. But can’t one go further and say that the GRA was also administratively compromised by the employment of several of Sattaur’s family members? I remember one of the former heads of the Berbice campus of UG had his wife and his brother working there. Then another brother made an application. The UG Council said three family members were too much, muchless four. I think in the case of the GRA it was five. To think that Jagdeo and Ramotar allowed that caricature to happen and could now sit at Freedom House and criticize the present administration, it makes you sick to the core. Shortly after a column I did on him, I received from Sattaur notice that I would be charged if I did not submit property tax going back seven years. I didn’t have a problem with that. But why me only? Sattaur sent it to me only. Not one of my UG colleagues got a similar notice. Not one of my media colleagues got a similar notice. I asked several of my white-collar friends in the public service if they received a similar assessment document and none had. Sattaur targeted me. Interestingly, when the matter became public, Fazal Khan, deceased husband of Gail Teixeira, told me that he knew one of Guyana’s most prominent business families did not submit property taxes Many lawyers told me I had a case against him based on Guyana’s anti-discrimination laws. I should have sued Sattaur for 50 billion dollars, because he would have had to answer to the court why on that date he did not send out his notice to thousands of people with similar, modest income like mine. Sattaur wasn’t finished with me. Year after year, he wrote to Kaieteur News demanding to know how much the paper paid me. I did a column lamenting the fact that Nigel Hughes was the only top lawyer taken to court by Sattaur for taxes. That was Sunday. The next morning, Sattaur sent me his own assessment of how much I owed GRA based on his estimate of my earning at Kaieteur News. The connection between the column and Sattaur’s communication was obvious. Let me repeat so readers can digest the absurdity of false statistics. Sattaur came up with his own figure of how much I was paid by the Kaieteur News. Based on Sattaur’s arbitrary figure of my earnings, I had a debt to GRA which, if I have to pay, I would have to sell my house, my car and perhaps the books the PPP said I stole from all the libraries I visited. This means of course that Bharrat Jagdeo cannot get a cent from me if he wins the libel and that is if the libel case will ever conclude. It is in its fifth year now. I was in the car of Gerhard Ramsaroop when someone very prominent and who was in a position to know, told us how much taxes one of the extraordinarily wealthy Guyanese paid for 2013. Sattaur can’t be blamed for that. He probably didn’t know. Sattaur can’t be blamed for the family that Fazal Khan mentioned. He probably didn’t know. Do you think he knew? GRA is undergoing a forensic audit, the outcome of which this entire nation and all Guyanese outside of the country cannot wait to read about. I think more than anything, including the inquiry into the crime spree of 2002-2005 when Roger Khan ran crazily over Guyana, people will want to hear about who benefited from what Minister Jordan said was a politically compromised GRA under Khurshid Sattaur. Looking back at my life under the hegemony of the PPP, I deeply regret I did not sue Khurshid Sattaur for discrimination and I didn’t file a complaint with the international body of chartered accountants. I end with a promise to President Granger, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and Finance Minister Winston Jordan. If Sattaur is reappointed as Commissioner-General, I will hold a one-man protest outside their respective offices.