PPP executive and opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira on Wednesday presented what she said was evidence to support the contention of Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo that Indo-Guyanese are being discriminated against by the APNU+AFC government and that they are poorly represented on state boards and in other areas.
Jagdeo’s recent claim in New York has stirred controversy here and attracted strong criticism from the APNU+AFC government.
Speaking on behalf of the party at a press conference at Freedom House, Teixeira said that Jagdeo’s statement was nothing new and in no way irresponsible.
Supporting her claim of Indians being marginalized, Teixeira stated that there have been “low” figures of Indo-Guyanese on state boards, which she said comprise mainly Afro-Guyanese.
For instance, she said, on the GuySuCo board, there are only two Indo-Guyanese out of nine while the Guyana Water Inc has two out of nine, the National Commission on the Elderly has only one out of nine, the Women’s Leadership Institute has two of 13 and the Central Board of Health has three of 15.
She also listed the number of Indo-Guyanese on the following boards as follows: one out of seven at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board, one out of six at the Privatisation Board, two out of 11 on the Guyana National Shipping Corporation, eight (including Amerindians) out of 20 on the University of Guyana Council, five out of 20 on the National Tripartite Committee and one out of 11 on the National Sports Commission.
All of the Presidential advisors, she said, are Afro-Guyanese and only four of the 33 Honorary Ministerial Advisors are of Indian origin. She also cited the Boards of Guardians 2016 in Regions 2, 8 and 9 and said there isn’t one Indo-Guyanese even where the majority population is Indian-Guyanese.
Asked whether persons were placed on the board on the basis of their qualifications, Teixeira responded that such claims that Indian-Guyanese are not qualified to be on the boards “is racial and political discrimination.”
She said the former president said that “there was an assault on our democracy, there’s an assault on people of Indian origin, [and] there’s an assault on supporters of the PPP.”
The APNU+AFC government, she said, reacts vehemently whenever the PPP or the parliamentary opposition exposes issues of inequality and racial and political discrimination.
The Government of Guyana had condemned Jagdeo for “race baiting,” over his New York speech.
“Racism is the well-known last refuge of the politically desperate and the coalition government calls on all right-thinking and patriotic Guyanese to reject Mr Jagdeo’s continued attempts at sowing racial divisions in our society,” the government said in a statement.
According to Teixeira, the government’s accusations of race-baiting and “the lengthy references to the Racial Hostility Act are meant to intimidate and to threaten the opposition to not speak about racial and political discrimination or face charges.”
The Chief Whip argued that the government’s release came 72 hours after the event in New York but only 10 hours after the announcement that the Food and Agriculture Organisation had appointed Jagdeo as Special Ambassador for Forests and the Environment. She said this was more than a coincidence and was meant to embarrass him.
She said too that, “Whether the Government admits it or not, the innumerable cases of ethnic and political discrimination are public knowledge and cannot be wished away by the official spin doctor;” Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, First Vice President of the APNU+AFC Government. “No spin can remove the facts.”
PPP executive member and MP, Anil Nandlall added that his party has a history of a struggle for racial, ethnic and class unity in Guyana and its leadership has always been in the vanguard of exposing and condemning discrimination.
He told the media that there have been “widespread dismissal of hundreds of Indo-Guyanese in the public sector without a hearing, or cause and without compensation.”
He said too that there have been attempted or repossession/seizures of Core Homes and house lots from predominantly Indo-Guyanese by the Central Housing and Planning Authority, as well as attempts and continuous attempts by State agencies to expropriate private, transported or titled properties owned predominantly by Indo-Guyanese.
Nandlall also charged that there has been targeting of predominantly, Indo-Guyanese for investigations by SOCU [Special Organised Crime Unit] and SARU [State Asset Recovery Unit] and the confiscation of large sums of money and jewellery in the course of, or as a result of those investigations.
He also mentioned other cases where he said Indo-Guyanese have faced discrimination and said most of these matters have been pending in the high court.
He declared that the PPP has a “history of a struggle for racial, ethnic and class unity in Guyana” and that its “leadership have always been in the vanguard of the struggle to expose and condemn discrimination, whenever it raises its ugly head, in any form or fashion.”
