On a Kaieteur Radio programme (Thursday January 4th 2023), Lalbachan Christopher Ram was asked a personal question by the moderator: if he ever considered politics given his expertise. Chris Ram responded by saying that he is not part of any political party. The question was not whether if he is part of a political party, the question was if he ever considered entering politics. A skillful deflection on the part of Ram. But this is an outright lie on Ram’s part. It is public knowledge that Chris Ram has political aspirations. He is generally an unethical professional, and this is well established within the fraternity.
Before I expose his dishonesty, the moderator who is attached to the OGGN, Andre Brandli, had reached out to me in relation to my response to Lalbachan Ram on the very subject of discussion, i.e., Chris Ram’s aspersion that the Natural Resources Fund (NRF) is overstated by some US$1.3 billion. Readers would recall my two essays where I dealt with this, whereby I pointed out that pursuant to the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMA Act), the NRF is essentially an Extra Budgetary Fund. I asked the moderator to raise this contention with Chris Ram for his comment on the FMA Act, which Ram ignored completely in his argument, to which he (the moderator) implicitly agreed given the national importance of the issue.
Unsurprisingly, the moderator never asked Chris Ram the question. It is reasonable to presume, therefore, that the moderator colluded with Chris Ram on the questions he would put to him. Obviously, Ram does not want to be embarrassed. Instead, on a false exaggeration of their perceived importance, they are demanding an official response from the Government, specifically the Vice President or Finance Minister.
Now, let’s deal with Ram’s political aspirations which he was outrightly dishonest about. Chris Ram has a well-established reputation for rallying against persons who do not give him his way. He does this to political parties as well as companies. This can be easily and systematically proven as I set out to do hereunder – where reasonable deductions can be derived.There was a beautifully written letter published in the Stabroek News of June 24, 2020, by Desmond Trotman. In this letter, Mr Trotman responded to Chris Ram who launched his usual tyrannical attack on the WPA at the height of the elections fiasco in 2020.
Here are a few excerpts from that letter by Mr Trotman, that corroborates the notion that Chris Ram is an egregious opportunist and when he doesn’t get what he wants, he ventures into the most awful and aggressive campaign aimed at ridiculing and destroying his opponents. Mr Trotman wrote: “Ram should tell the truth about why he is so angry with Dr Roopnaraine, Ogunseye, me (D. Trotman) and the WPA.”
Mr Trotman goes on to reveal that subsequent to the discussions Ram had with the named members of the WPA in the lead-up to the 2015 general and regional elections, he (Chris Ram) was asked if he would allow his name to be put forward as WPA’s choice for the Prime Ministerial candidate on the APNU’s list of candidates. Though Ram was not the finalised candidate, he firmly believed that he would be the chosen one and began to spread the news that he’s the WPA’s choice for Prime Minister. Mr Trotman further disclosed that a few in the executive of the WPA, including him, opposed Ram’s candidacy because they felt he was unsuitable for the role.
According to Mr Trotman, he told the executive that “politically, I consider him to be a loose cannon and an unguided missile, whose candidacy would have disastrous consequences for the APNU. Interestingly in that letter, Mr Trotman noted that Ram and Ogunseye had some discussions, during which he was told by Ogunseye that the matter was not agreed upon but is still being discussed.
In the final quote from Desmond Trotman’s letter, he outrightly labelled Ram a ‘hypocrite.’ Trotman even backed this up by pointing out that while Ram became a staunch critic of the APNU government on the corruption front, he still accepted several contracts valuing large sums from the APNU government.
Fast forward to 2020, Ram shifted gear to ingratiate himself with the PPP with the hope that he would get whatever he asked for. It was not a case where he was not offered anything, though, he was, but those were not compatible with his politically motivated desires.
Christopher Ram is not what he would like others to think through the third-party defenders of his reputation. The perceived reputation he has in the fraternity is attributed to his loudmouth and intimidating tactics in the fraternity; he is feared by many and he is of the mistaken view that fearing him is the same as respecting him.
Prior to Ram’s Prime Ministerial aspirations through the WPA as Desmond Trotman revealed back in 2020, some years before that, Chris Ram was “courting” a senior executive in the PPP/C, who is a former President, to be the finance minister. This was since before Dr. Ashni Singh was finance minister. And after Dr. Ashni Singh was appointed finance minister, Ram as usual, became extremely toxic towards the PPP government.
In terms of his unethical conduct in the professional sphere, I recently examined the quality of his audit of a financial institution. The first unethical conduct uncovered is a violation of the IAASB standard whereby independent auditors are required to be changed or rotated after seven years; yet Ram & McRae has been the auditor for over sixteen years.
In my findings as well, there appears to be Chris Ram’s facilitation and/or cover up of “unethical accounting practices” by that institution, that Ram & McRae is the independent auditor, to the extent where the Guyana Revenue Authority has filed a case against that institution, that is currently before the Court.
Hence, with all of the foregoing in mind, it is safe to conclude that he (Lalbachan Ram) has absolutely no professional integrity and credibility altogether. Who is holding him accountable? And to whom is he accountable? For too long he escaped, unchallenged with his nonsense, whereas he is a first-class hypocrite of the highest order.