Dear Editor,
After fifteen months in office, Guyanese in the diaspora who helped the APNU+AFC be elected to office are today frustrated and disappointed by the manner in which they are being treated by the Government of Guyana. Many believe that they are treated as outcasts, while others have stated that they are being viewed as foreigners by the government. They have stated that the promises made to the diaspora by Mr Granger and other leaders of the government are not being fulfilled. Several members of the PNCR groups in Brooklyn have noted that prior to the last general elections, Mr Granger came to New York on several occasions and was the host of many fund-raising events for the elections. He also visited the Indo-Guyanese community in Richmond Hill, Queens, New York, where he was enthusiastically greeted by hundreds of devoted supporters of the coalition party and where hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised to fight the election.
However, since the coalition has been elected to office, members of the diaspora are of the belief that the President and his team are ungrateful. They claimed that the President visited New York on several occasions but at no time did he ever attempt to meet with members in the diaspora. On a few occasions, the President met with a group of a dozen or so elitist Guyanese who did not mobilize any support for the government before or after the elections. He has not met with the grassroots Guyanese in the area. They noted that this has been President Granger’s second visit to the United Nations, and unlike the other heads of state from the Caribbean, Africa and Asia who took time out from their busy schedule to meet and address their nationals at town hall meetings, Mr Granger met briefly with a handful of elitist Guyanese before hopping on a plane back to Guyana.
Not only has the government mistreated the masses in the diaspora, it has not established a Diaspora Department, or a Commission, or appointed a Member of Parliament from the diaspora, or provided the jobs or consultancy positions he had promised during the elections. In fact, there is absolutely no proper communication between the grassroots members of the diaspora and the government.
His neglect of the members of the diaspora resulted in a meeting of a number of concerned Guyanese in Queens, New York on Saturday September 24, 2016, to formulate a resolution with several demands to be sent to the President no later than October 10, 2015. The meeting was well attended. Among the attendees were prominent attorneys at law, Colin Moore and Derrick Arjune; businesswoman Guiliana Jacobs; former Chairman of the AFC defunct Queens organization, Charles Sugrim; Vice Chair, Leyland Roopnarine and Secretary, Sase Singh; Pastor Jean Banmattie; several former members of the YSM including Eustace Hall and Michael Aarons; and members of the North American Region and PNCR groups in Brooklyn.
Yours faithfully
Asquith Rose
