Dear Editor,
APNU+AFC placed a target on Afro-Guyanese professionals in public service
The truth has slapped the detractors in the APNU+AFC in the face. No longer can they keep up the shenanigans and pretence about caring for the advancement of Afro-Guyanese when in fact they have worked silently and, in some cases, openly to destroy Afro-Guyanese professionals in the public service and elsewhere.
Fortunately, the Afro-Guyanese who were railroaded and left to perish during the coalition regime that wanted to grab power by the nefarious means of another PNC-led rigged election, are confronting the baseless lies on race relations from an opposition coalition in extremis.
Dr. Marcel Hutson, an Afro-Guyanese and consummate professional with no political affiliation to the best of my knowledge, broke his silence on Sunday about his tempestuous removal as Chief Education Officer (CEO) under the spiteful APNU+AFC cabal.
In a letter to the media, Dr. Hutson said, “My career as an educator, and more so as Chief Education Officer (CEO) spanning more than 33 years could have ended disastrously after being sent on extended leave for doing what I do best: Serving the children and people of this nation. There was a deafening silence on this matter by those with a penchant for talking.”
It was President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, whose caring and compassionate qualities along with his veneration for professional persons regardless of ethnicity, who was instrumental in Dr. Hutson returning to the Ministry of Education where his immeasurable experience was key to Guyana overcoming the challenges to education during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
From my count, Dr. Hutson is not the only Afro-Guyanese that the coalition unceremoniously dismissed from the Ministry of Education.
Four former senior staff members readily come to mind in Olatocumbo Sam, Mary Luke, Yonette Edwards and Melcita Bovell.
We are aware of Afro-Guyanese professionals in other Government positions who were targeted and stripped of jobs by a political creature that sought to forcefully reestablish the Forbes Burnham philosophy of party paramountcy.
Volda Lawrence articulated it best for the world to record when she said only PNC members could get jobs under the coalition administration.
That meant that Afro-Guyanese who were non-members of the PNC were obviously sidelined for Government contracts and jobs.
There was silence then from the likes of Rickford Burke, Lincoln Lewis, Nigel Hinds, David Hinds, Lelon Saul, and others, who now claim to be champions for Afro-Guyanese.
In light of Dr. Hutson’s revelations, we can certainly expect these dogmatists to rush to the defence of the APNU+AFC while their forked-tongues spit vitriol at Dr. Hutson with the usual threats and derogatory labels.
The scars of the failed APNU+AFC regime are still fresh and haunt many Afro-Guyanese professionals who lost their jobs to PNC members.
The truth has exposed the wolf that is the APNU+AFC and its thirst for power, even if it means shredding our beautiful country apart, using race to spread propaganda in furtherance of a narrow political agenda of retaining whatever little remaining relevance it has left.
Respectfully,
Kwame McCoy
Minister within the Office of
the Prime Minister
