PM Phillips condemns opposition’s ‘desperate attempts at race-baiting’

Prime Minister Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips has chastised the APNU+AFC and its affiliated groups for the desperate attempts at race-baiting, which they hope will incite civil unrest and disrupt the immense benefits being experienced by all Guyanese.

Prime Minister Phillips was responding to a letter issued by a group called the Institute for Action Against Discrimination in which the purported author, Lelon Saul, who identified as the secretary of the group, makes incredibly fraudulent and misleading statements that the government is pushing Guyana to the ‘brink of civil unrest’.

PM Phillips believes that since the letter is addressed to a United States (US) Representative, the author is under the illusion that using false claims will trigger a US intrusion into the affairs of Guyana, which is a democratic sovereign state.

“I wholeheartedly believe that whom the gods would destroy they first make stark crazy. Mr Saul is like so many of the delusional men and women in the failed APNU+AFC regime, who failed to deliver a ‘good life’, especially Afro-Guyanese, whom they now misguidedly seek to exploit for political relevance.

“I wish to also remind Guyanese that the author is a former senior officer of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) who later served as Chief Executive Officer of the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) where he failed to implement a viable government housing programme,” Prime Minister Phillips stated in his letter dated November 23, 2022.

The senior government functionary reminded citizens that in less than two and a half years in office, the PPP/C Government rescued the housing development programme and turned it around. To date, 11,000 house lots and low-income houses have been issued and the beneficiaries are over 50 per cent Afro-Guyanese.

Also, every relief grant paid by the government saw Afro-Guyanese benefitting; payments made in the sugar industry benefitted over 20 per cent of Afro-Guyanese, which is contrary to what the APNU+AFC would have Guyanese believe. Many Afro-Guyanese are involved in rice, other crops and livestock, and have benefitted from flood relief and other support programmes for farmers.

“Recently, this author was the only person who hid behind a mask among a group that received agricultural equipment less than 96 hours after President Irfaan Ali’s recent visit to Belladrum on a political outreach to the Mahaica-Berbice region.  He had the temerity to ask questions of the President about security when visiting PNC strongholds as if to suggest that the President should not visit these areas,” the letter relayed.

The Prime Minister expressed the view that Saul is confused and is an obsequious tentacle affixed to the scheming, manipulative, and depraved APNU+AFC which plunged Guyana into chaos, and on the brink of civil unrest following a failed plan to smother the March 2, 2020 general and regional elections.

“They would have gotten away with the heist of our country through stolen elections had it not been for the vigilance of contesting political parties, the media and the diplomatic missions of the ABCE countries in Guyana,” the PM said.

The APNU+AFC is on a treacherous road that they hope will create civil unrest and allow for the breakdown of democracy in Guyana which happened under the PNC in the 70s and 80s.

The Prime Minister noted the APNU+AFC’s continuous push for civil unrest through attacks on the media, blockading government officials from engaging with communities, unruly behaviour in the National Assembly, and adopting a confrontational approach to the President when there should be discussions on key national issues.

“Plans to railroad the country were not achieved in 2020 and certainly law-abiding Guyanese along with civil society will continue to forcefully reject the deceptive actions of the APNU+AFC and call for political maturity which will ensure greater unity and prosperity for all Guyanese,” the PM added.