Dear Editor,
IDPADA-G calls on the African Prosperity Network to withdraw its bestowal of the African Global l.eadership award to President Irfaan AIi. IDPADA-G was created to pursue the mandate of the United Nations (UN) declared Decade for People of African Descent addressing the abiding legacies of slavery. At the centre of that mandate is the pursuit of changes to the “legal and institutional frameworks” of the state in the interest of reparative justice for the people of African descent. Unfortunately, the Government of Guyana, as the fundamental apparatus of the State of Guyana, has not crafted a programme for the realization of that UN objective. Rather, the current Government has made laudable statements about the resilience of the people of African descent in defiance of slavery and offered its commitment to advocate for reparative programmes as recompense for the dehumanizing crime of slavery.
While making politically correct statements on the international stage, the Ali Government’s domestic actions are completely antithetical to its international posture. It has articulated that there is no need for special attention or corrective action to address the post-slavery perpetuation of legal and institutional frameworks that continue to negatively impact the material and psychosocial reality of African Guyanese. (See the Government’s response to the UN queries arising from reports submitted by IDPADA-G to the UN). In fact, the government has doubled down on these harmful legacies, facilitating instead the continuity of the pre-emancipation state arrangements put in place to the detriment of people of African descent. His administration has compounded the already parlous circumstances by virtue of public policies and the conduct of public affairs that militate against the interest of the African Guyanese community. To cite just a few examples:
1. The discontinuation of the RAID project that was intended to rehabilitate the farm lands in four African Guyanese communities;
2. The insistence on by-passing and under-cutting locally elected representatives of African
Guyanese communities and their civil society organizations, like IDPADA-G, preferring rather to engage in so-called ‘direct’ contact with the people;
3. The wanton disregard for the human rights and lives of people of African descent, such as the extra-judicial killings of African Guyanese as in the cases of Orin Boston, Quindon Bacchus and others.
4. The wanton disregard for the property rights of people of African descent as exhibited in the bulldozing of the homes, and destruction of the livelihoods of the people of Mocha-Arcadia, under the pretext of road development;
5. The constant threat of loss of cooperatively owned lands and the brazen forfeiture of co- operatively owned property, as in the case of the Essequibo Regional Co-operative Union building and the movable assets therein.
It is against this backdrop of the Irfaan Ali regime’s hostility and disrespect for African Guyanese that IDPADA-G has viewed the intention of the African Prosperity Network to present him with an award. We are dismayed, disappointed and infuriated that an organization out of Ghana, through an aspirant investor here in Guyana, has decided to present its ‘Global African Leadership Award” to a President who cannot be more undeserving. The APN is bestowing this award in recognition of “Guyana’s enviable position as the fastest growing economy in the world and for how that prosperity is shared along the principles of equity and probity.” That Guyana is the fastest growing economy in the world has little or nothing to do with the leadership of President Ali. That fortuitous circumstance was inherited by him. As to the sharing of the new prosperity along the principles of equity and more so probity, all evidence points to the contrary. Examples abound.
The Ali administration has gone as far as appealing against a decision of the High Court of Guyana that determined that Exxon should provide insurance coverage for any possible occurrence of an oil spill or attendant incident, not to mention the ongoing protestation in relation to detrimental flaring condoned by the Government; turned a blind eye to discriminatory wage structures; dances around audit queries that are being hidden from the population; continues to award contracts to non-compliant, non-performing cronies; gives a mere slap on the wrist to someone who ostensibly reduced an Exxon repayment obligation from $214M USD to $3M USD, and of course, without cause or notice, curtailed the IDPADA-G subvention to support work towards the goals of the UN Decade for People of African Descent.
The award cites President Ali for his “equity and probity in the management of the fastest growing economy in the world”. APN is clearly unaware that equity and probity are not hallmarks of the Ali administration. Quite to the contrary! The irony of this situation is that even as African Guyanese, among others, are crying out about the absence of equity, an organization from the African continent chooses not to stand in solidarity with brothers and sisters in Guyana but instead to reward the President of an administration bent on the oppression and marginalization of people of African descent. This injurious and egregious act is reminiscent of those among our ancestors, albeit a minority, who sold us into slavery, a heinous act from which we are yet to recover.
Sincerely,
Olive Cannings Sampson
Chief Executive Officer