PPP’s phantom bloggers exposed – paid by NCN
Ten individuals were paid by the National Communications Network (NCN) to anonymously attack government critics and promote the PPP/C through social media as part of a politically directed unit operating out of the Office of the President (OP).
Three of them are related to senior PPP members. According to records seen by this publication, Renata Rohee, a daughter of the General Secretary of the PPP/C Clement Rohee, was paid along with eight others, the sum of $22,000 every fortnight for a job specified as “monitor and works processor”. They were on the state-funded NCN payroll but worked out of OP. Also on the payroll were Dikisha Cumberbatch, the sister-in-law of former Office of the President Press and Publicity Officer Kwame McCoy, and Javed Mustapha, a family member of Zulfikar Mustapha, Executive Secretary of the PPP/C.
Other persons listed as having contracts up to as recently as March 31, 2015 are Carl Howes, Dana King, Orland Smith, Dellon La Rose Carlyle Softly, and Nayland Walker (monitor operator/video specialist) . Waheeda Saheed earned $60k per month with gratuities as a media monitor.
McCoy, under the watch of then Head of the Press and Publicity Unit at the Office of the President, Prem Misir had established the New Media Unit around 2008 to monitor and respond to the rise in online criticisms of the PPP, particularly on such fora as the Guyana Message Board and from sites such as LivingGuyana. Among those involved was Bassu Dwarka the current Protocol Officer to the President at Office of the President who was an administrator for the slander site LiveinGuyana.