PPP/C in Gov’t befriended criminals - Tourism Minister Hughes
TOURISM Minister Cathy Hughes made glaring remarks in the National Assembly yesterday, accusing the former People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government of creating an incubator for crime in Guyana since it supported criminal elements that are now before international courts. Hughes’s presentation was centred on her support for the 2015 budget presented by Finance Minister Winston Jordan, and also offered some insight into the challenges of the tourism sector.
Speaking directly to the impact of crime on Guyana’s tourism sector and particularly on arrivals in the country, Hughes said, “It is difficult to talk of increasing visitor arrival without mentioning the debilitating impact crime is having on our country, its people, and the potential of our tourism product.
“It was under the former PPP/C Administration that crime escalated,” Hughes said, recalling that Guyana was labelled a major trans-shipment point after “drugs started leaving Guyana in every conceivable way.
“A long list of friends of the last Administration, who operated businesses supported by the Government, had been implicated, charged and in some cases, convicted for a range of illegal activities in international courts,” Hughes continued. A provoking Hughes touted the old saying, “Show me who your friends are and I will show you who you are.”
Hughes went on to explain her shock at statements made by former Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, who was in charge of Guyana’s security sector under the PPP/C Administration. According to Hughes, Rohee had made a recent public declaration that the police “now have information on who killed former Minister ‘Sash’ Sawh.”
Sawh was Agriculture Minister under the PPP/C Administration when he was gunned down in his La Bonne Intention, East Coast Demerara home, along with two of his relatives and a security guard.
“The fact that this former head, who clearly was in possession of such information while in office, but who did nothing with the information, is horrifying,” Hughes said of Rohee’s statements, adding that his posture indicates the approach of the then Government to solving crime in Guyana.
Speaking on what the new Government will do to tackle crime, Hughes said, “With the plan that we have, our acceptance of assistance from international partners who are skilled in this area… assistance the last Government refused to accept, and the support of the Guyanese people, we will succeed.”
Speaking before Hughes was parliamentary representative for the PPP in Region 2 (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Cornel Damon, who called for the removal of Vice-President and Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan for what he said is the minister’s inability to tackle the escalating crime situation in Guyana.
Beginning his presentation with criticism on the 2015 budget presented by Finance Minister Winston Jordan, Damon called the budget one that is “immature and lacks the ingredients that should have been injected into it for the masses and the various regions and sectors of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.”
Damon bemoaned the fact that allocations for projects in the region he represents have been cut by half. “But we will try to survive and hope that someday, we would have the Government of the PPP/C returned to its right office,” he continued.
Turning his attention to the Public Security Minister, Damon said, “Mr Ramjattan must understand [that] he needs to address the crime situation from left, right, and centre.”
Damon said the crime rate has increased in all regions, including the gold-mining sector, even as the Public Security Minister “is still planning how to curb crime in Guyana.”
The Region 2 ‘rep’ went on to state that the country’s crime rate was 40% less in the 10th Parliament, when now Opposition MP Clement Rohee served as Home Affairs Minister under the previous PPP/C Government.
“Mr Speaker, on behalf of the masses of Guyana, I am saying that the Honourable member has no plan to fight the surge of crime and the senseless killings of our businessmen and women, and honourable member Ramjattan must go!” Damon said as his colleagues banged their desks in support.
By Derwayne Wills
