Presidential Advisor on Governance Gail Teixeira yesterday chided some of the leaders joining the protest action for saying that Linden is poorer than anywhere else in the country, insisting that this is not a true statement.
According to a GINA press release, Teixeira stated that figures from the World Bank, UNICEF and United Nations Development Pro-gramme (UNDP) would show that the highest level of poverty in Guyana is among the Amerindian people, “which is something we are struggling to overcome with improved health and education and so on.” Teixeira added that the international figures also show that the poverty rates for Linden and Region 10, in comparison with Georgetown and Berbice in Region 6, show there is a very small deferential, GINA said. “Georgetown has the lowest levels of poverty in the country and Berbice and Region 10 are comparable. There is only a slight point percentage between Linden and Berbice,” she was quoted as saying.
She said the misinformation being peddled is aimed at trying to create “feelings of being marginalized”, in the people of Linden. She added, “…I think it is highly irresponsible for political leaders, or persons claiming to want political leadership that they are being so highly irresponsible to our people.”
Meanwhile, GINA said, Teixeira said stated that members of the Diplomatic Community were briefed about the “misinformation and threats being peddled on the social networking sites.”
GINA said she revealed that “photographs posted on some of the sites give people the impression that the faces you are seeing there, these are the faces of some of the persons who were killed in Linden and in fact they are not. They are photographs relating to uprisings in other parts of the world, including Nigeria. That is not Guyana.”
She said the issue was raised about social networking being used “to incite, to confuse, to misinform people, and that was an issue the President said he has raised with the Opposition parties: That we need to get the situation back into control so that we can talk in a less charged environment.”
She added: “We do not and would not encourage our people, members or supporters to be wild and to be irresponsible in their behaviour. We are a multi cultural, multi ethnic society”, GINA said.
