In the 7 years from 2000 to 2006 whilst our budget
increased from $63 billion to $103 billion i.e. a $63.5% increase, the money
allocated to our supreme court had only risen to $619 million in 2006 from $479
million in 2000 i.e. a 29% increase. So if the allocation to the supreme court
was only increased by 29% and it should have been increased by 63.5% then
someone reduced the increases to the supreme courts by 117%, that person was
President Bharat Jagdeo who is our de facto minister of finance. Now for us to
keep up with the increases of 63% which the national budget risen by since
2000, the 2006 allocation to the Supreme Court should, if it had risen
proportionally, have been nearly 800 million and not the 600 million which was
given.
Like you I saw an apparently outraged Jagdeo promising to give the
supreme court an additional 20 million to rectify all of its problems, since
some magistrate gave bail to a wanted criminal who was likely to flee the
jurisdiction, but it is this same President in an effort to control the rule of
law itself who reduced the allocation to the courts by 200 million this year
alone, rushing in now with a 20 million dollar plaster now for a 200 million
dollar sore, he himself is responsible for, does not impress me at all! Nearly
half of his judges are acting, an abomination in itself, and most of the other
half are working for little or nothing in constant fear of interference in
their careers from the executive if they rule against the state, there are no court
recording staff, so our judges have to write down every word of the proceedings
in long hand, stalling the process of justice to a crawl, there is no proper court
registry, and the noise! Ladies and gentlemen the noise!! That noise interference
alone makes timely justice impossible.
Every day numerous breaches to the rule of law are being made by the
executive in this country, for example hotels are springing up all over the
place, these hotels have been promised casino gambling licenses and this is no
longer an allegation someone whose integrity I trust completely has seen one of
these agreements.
The EPA act number 11 of 1996 tells us in subsections 10 and 11 of the
fourth schedule that the construction of any Hotel, Guest House or Inn with more than 10 rooms will require an environmental impact assessment study. There is
no obscurity about it; the law says that they will do it, so no one can waive
it. but the legal system itself in this country, under pressure from Jagdeo to
get his hotels to bail him out of the embarrassing situation he finds himself
in with the world cup cricket, are being forcing to break the law.
These actions also contravene article 71 of the constitution since
article 71 tells us that decisions which will affect people's lives in this
socialist democracy must be made with the involvement of as many of them as
possible, if people are building these white elephants for the world cup
cricket, and they are being built without any Environmental Impact Assessment
Studies or any consultations with the public who live near to them, then it is
being done against the law. And when people approach the courts the judges are
allowing these breaches of the EPA act to pass. I want to know why we have an EPA
act in this country in the first place if our courts will not enforce it, this
could not be what President Chedie Jagan had in mind when he made this act
after the OMAI spill, it was made to protect the public but it is not doing so,
because of corruption in the executive branch of government which is
controlling the judicial system.
Ladies and gentlemen, Casino Gambling is not like lotto or bingo, I am no
prude you all know that, but casino gambling is tailor made for laundering
dirty money since if some man goes into a casino and loses $500,000, it leaves
no paper trail, in no other business is that so, when you buy $500,000 in chips
you do not get a receipt for it, they don't even ask your name so if 100 people
go into these gambling houses with $500,000 each night that is 50 million a night
or nearly 19 billion a year, now increased capacity to launder drug money only
creates the market for more drug money to be laundered, so if the capacity to
launder money is enhanced, then there will be bigger drug trade in Guyana,
a bigger drug trade means more and bigger drug barons; more and bigger
drug barons means more and bigger gangs to protect the drug barons, more
and bigger competing gangs means more crime
in the society when they fight among themselves.
So before anyone decides that they will make this a casino gambling
nation there will have to be a national dialog and consultations with the
churches, the women's and other interested civil groups and so on, Jagdeo
cannot just decide that we will have casino gambling here, regardless of the consequences,
without our consent. So I consider that this time he has stepped way out of
line, so far out of line in fact that if this were any sort of self respecting country
we would rise up and demand his resignation, immediately!
Ladies and gentlemen you have no idea what can happen here in Guyana if Casino
Gambling becomes a reality, we have no particular rule of law, our legal system
sucks, we have no particular police force to handle the crime that can emerge
from unregulated casino gambling and the crime it spawns, the situation is
described this way by Jeffrey Robinson, a world authority on money laundering, and
I quote him "As the UK prepares for a new generation of mega-casinos, Britain
must take action to prevent suffering the same fate as the US, where, casinos
are still viewed by organised crime groups as giant Laundromats. Casinos
are targeted by organised crime groups because they process large amounts of
cash on a daily basis. Nevada [Las Vegas and Reno] has one of the largest FBI
offices in the United States because of crime linked to gambling" Robinson
concludes.
When the drug lords themselves are part owners of these casinos as is the
situation in Guyana then the situation becomes exponentially worse! Who are we
going to put to see that the casinos operate within the law Lumumba? And these
casinos will be scattered all over the place, on the East and West Bank and
Coast of Demerara, in all parts of the city of Georgetown even in residential
areas and in Berbice. now assuming we decided as a nation after heavy and
meaningful consultations with the citizens of this country to allow Casino
Gambling here, then it would be advisable to cordon off some area in say Lilliandal
and make that an area where people will build these casinos/hotels, if this is
done then we would be able to monitor them properly, not this scattered all
over the place situation making meaningful monitoring impossible and putting
what will be focuses of crime literally in people's backyards. Why is it that
we can never get anything right in this country? Why is it necessary that we as
a nation have a government which decided without consulting us that they too
incompetent to manage our affairs doing legitimate enterprises and so they have
to resort to this type stupidity which can make a bad crime situation, worse.
Ladies and gentlemen I have decided to take my Neighborhood council to
court for allowing one of these hotels/casinos to be built in my neighborhood
at Versailles without consultation with residents or an Environmental Impact Assessment
study and I am calling any or all of on you who will be affected in your areas
to join me in a class action suit to share the cost to stop the construction of
these breaches to our constitutional and other rights under the law. One group
has already called me to inform me that one judge has already rendered what is
to them a perverse judgment on this matter, so now I would like to carry that
case to the Appeal Court and to the CCJ.
