When elephants fight, ants must bite them

NOVEMBER 24, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

I don’t care to find out what the quarrel at the Ogle airport is all about. On the surface, it appears to be an accusation by a number of aviation companies against another company which has management rights to the airport. Information was in the press about a month ago when it was stated that the IDB gave the then PPP Government a loan for the rehabilitation of the airport. A condition was attached that the management of the airport must be in private hands. The Government agreed thus the airport is administered by a private company. This is what radical scholars would refer to as imperialism. A Government gets a loan to rehabilitate a public property which it must pay back from taxpayers’ money but the taxpayers have lost control over the public land because the lender would only lend the money if you put a private business in charge of the public property. How terrible it was of Bharrat Jagdeo to enter into such a nonsensical arrangement. Come to think of it, Mr. Jagdeo was a silly President. I can accept the framework of a specific period for private control then the airport reverts to governmental administration. I understand that Ogle airport is in the day to day hands of a private company without any termination date. I may be wrong but was told that. The government has enacted legislation since Independence to reduce daily involvement of central government in many spheres of public patronage. The most pellucid example is the University of Guyana. There is a University of Guyana Act which insulates the University from actual control of the President, the Minister of Education and the Cabinet. But the essential existence of the university is the function of the Government of Guyana. There is an airport authority at Timehri. There is a Forestry Commission. There is a National Parks Commission. But the Timehri airport, UG and the forests are state properties. There cannot be any mistake or grey area – UG, the Timehri airport, the country’s national parks are owned by the State. It should be like that at Ogle. This should not exclude privatization of the Ogle structure but then you are talking billions and billions which private investors may reject. As said above, I don’t care to know about the rights and wrongs about the current confrontation. Rich folks are fighting among themselves and the poor must stay clear because the poor have been victims of ruthless employers who are among the group that are in confrontation with the airport company. It is no secret that one of those aviation companies that are crying about domination and unfair business tactics treat his employees terribly and he is not only in the aviation business. There are sordid details about this man’s employment attitude that will give you goose bumps. Another company has a history of strange behaviour of which I will offer two examples. One of his planes went missing for weeks. He found it in Colombia. Then one of his employees while on official duty at the Timehri Airport was caught with cocaine. He then enacted a committee to probe how that could have happened and he chose the Guyanese James Bond to head the internal investigation. In one of the Bond movies, “Thunderball” a SPECTRE agent enticed Bond into her bed so her hitmen could capture him. They did. And as they were leaving the bedroom to take Bond out to kill him, she mocked Bond telling him how he thinks he can have sex with any woman he wants. Then Bond floored her with his reply. He said, “Lady don’t flatter yourself, what I did in bed was for King and country.” I wonder what our local James Bond did was for whom? Was it for President and country or for the company? Another one of the companies fighting the Ogle airport management was accused by a woman of being abandoned after her husband disappeared in a flight. He probably died in the jungle. She went to the local internet newscast INEWS and complained bitterly. To help her, I devoted an entire column to her story. Never knew if she got a cent. That is why when elephants fight, ants must not runaway. They must get into the act and bite the Goliaths who couldn’t give a damn if they got trampled. Last Sunday evening I was at the GNS Sport Complex on Carifesta Avenue where I got information that will make you laugh. All the companies in the Ogle brawl, on both sides, have high friends in both APNU and AFC.