citizensreportgy.com. April 13, 2017
The challenge for a facts-based analysis and debate, which was issued by Opposition Leader, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, to Director of the State Assets Recovery Unit and Head of the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA), Eric Phillips, remains unanswered.
Earlier this week at a news conference, the Opposition Leader blasted Phillips for continued attempts to “polarize” Guyanese people on the basis of race.
“We’re prepared to engage on a fact-based analysis in terms of access to land, Afro-Guyanese owned in that period more land than ever before; in terms of vehicles purchased … in terms of black-owned businesses,” he stated, adding that the facts make clear that under successive People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) administration, Afro-Guyanese prospered and there was no institutionalized practice of racism.
Looking at the current state of affairs, he noted that Afro-Guyanese are losing wealth. “All Guyanese are being affected,” he said, underscoring the fact that arguments which “excuse” the incompetence of the Coalition government with misdirection, aimed at polarizing Guyanese, cannot hide that fact.
“Look at Nigel’s Supermarket, which started under the PPP. It grew to the pinnacle under the PPP and now it’s failing. There are hundreds of similar businesses,” he stated.
Jagdeo said a facts base analysis would settle the matter once and for all.
He warned, “We are not going to win with people who have a racist agenda and who want to polarize the country.”
Jagdeo had previously recalled that the predominantly Afro-Guyanese Public Sector had been eventually pauperised owing to the devaluation of the Guyana dollar in the 1980s that had resulted in a decline in the minimum wage to US$25.00. He had noted too that the predominantly Afro-Guyanese town of Linden got a brand new hospital, two new secondary schools, new housing schemes at Amelia’s Ward and Block 22, a new potable water supply system and subsidized electricity. Other achievements by Afro-Guyanese, he listed, were access to land, public service jobs and home ownership.
“I am proud of our record, how we have moved this country forward and a lot of our people; in fact, all of our people, made progress,” Jagdeo stressed.