On Monday, Guyana Vice President (VP) Bharrat Jagdeo posted a video to his official Facebook page. According to the caption attached to the video, Jagdeo was interviewed by Vice News when he was given the opportunity “to set the record straight on a series of misinformation.”
The approximately one hour and 40 minute video shows Jagdeo asserting that developed countries, often disproportionately and unfairly classify developing countries as corrupt. Jagdeo specifically noted this phenomenon through mechanisms like the International Corruption Perception Index (CPI), used to measure the level of corruption in a particular country.
“This is like a blackness index. The darker you are, the lower you are on the index. The developed countries hardly ever get on this index, and they have more institutional corruption in my view.”
The VP also explained that the Guyanese chapter of Transparency International—the global coalition against corruption that publishes the CPI ranking—were silent for five years in spite of several allegations of corruption from the Guyanese public and opposition at the time.
After Jagdeo expressed these views, Vice News directly asked the VP if he has ever taken a bribe, launching into a series of personal corruption allegations.
“When the reporters come from abroad, this is their ‘catch you’ kind of thing. You always want to make a developing country leader look corrupt,” Jagdeo lamented.
He added, “All [of] my statements are in with the integrity commission. The last Government—they checked everything about me, and they didn’t find anything.”
After several attempts to obtain a comment from the VP regarding alleged acts of bribery between him and a source referred to as “Mr. Su,” Jagdeo ultimately stated that Vice News’ allegations were accurate in the sense that he helps people.
“I just heard what you read and that’s totally accurate. I help out as many people as I can,” He said, “I help people out, but it doesn’t mean for consideration.”
The Vice Media Group has yet to publish the interview themselves.