“Forest giveaway” revelations…Natural Resources Minister challenges opposition to debate

The call from the Parliamentary Opposition, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), for Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, to apologise for accusing the PPP/C of ‘giving away’ 100 percent of Guyana’s productive forest, was met with a challenge to debate yesterday.
The minister asked to comment after an article was published captioned, “PPP wants Trotman to apologise for ‘forest giveaway’ revelations”, stated that the opposition should “bring their documents and the government will bring theirs and let the matter be debated in Parliament so that the issue be dealt with once and for all”.
During his Budget speech last week, Trotman told the National Assembly, “We were met with an alarming situation where we discovered that 100 per cent or all of our productive forest was allocated by the past Government.” Trotman said that there “is nothing left.”
The following day, Prime Minister Nagamootoo took evidence to the House that supported what was initially said by Trotman. Further, the media had released information explaining in detail what the PPP did with Guyana’s forest to the extent where it gave out forest lands that were not to be given out.
But the PPP holds out that it is all a lie. The party claims that the “lie” undermines the Guyana-Norway partnership and Guyana’s international reputation.
The Party says that in the absence of an apology and a full retraction, it will be seeking an independent investigation into the claims made by Minister Trotman.
The Party said, “Pending the outcomes of this investigation, the PPP will have no choice but to support Norway in suspending the Guyana-Norway partnership in order to preserve its integrity in the long-term interests of Guyanese citizens”.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the PPP said that Minister Trotman and Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo both lied about the PPP/C government’s 100% giveaway of Guyana’s productive forest and “they must apologize to the people of Guyana”.
Meanwhile, after this allegation went viral late last week, it created a massive stir especially on the Social Media platform where some Guyanese locally, and in the Diaspora have described it as both “frightening and creepy”.