Public Telecommunications Minister Cathy Hughes yesterday said she is still awaiting advice from Cabinet and one of the two attorneys she has consulted about any potential conflict of interest she my face in government deliberations on the oil and gas sector and she assured that in the interim she will excuse herself from such discussions.
“I haven’t gotten it yet… I’ve gotten one. I actually wrote off to two attorneys and I have gotten one,” Hughes said yesterday at the Ministry of Finance, shortly after the signing of a loan agreement with China for the National Broadband Project.
The local anti-corruption watchdog Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc (TIGI) earlier this month expressed concern that there may be a potential conflict of interest for Minister Hughes, given that her husband, attorney Nigel Hughes, is a managing director of the Hughes, Fields and Stoby law firm, which recently established an office in Houston, Texas to provide legal services to clients in the oil and gas sector.