Latest update January 11th, 2025 4:10 AM
Latest News
- Govt, US-Exim Bank sign US$527 million for GTE project
- Rystad Energy issues misleading analysis on Guyana’s share from ExxonMobil contract
- Deaths from Israeli attacks in Gaza undercounted by 41 percent, study finds
- PNC calls for doubling of minimum wage, tax free threshold to be increased to $400,000 monthly
- Pensioner dies at CJIA while waiting to board flight to New York
AFC MP cries victimization
AFC’s Valerie Garrido-Lowe
Alliance For Change (AFC) Member of Parliament (MP), Valerie Garrido-Lowe, is saying that she and her colleague, Eula Marcello, “are being singled out for unfair and embarrassing treatment, I am sure, meant to put us in our places.”
Lowe’s view is that this is their penalty for not approving the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs capital budget this year.
Lowe said that this became clear when her name was scratched off a list of people allowed to board a chartered flight to Kato for a workshop.
The Member of Parliament recalled that on May 10, last, on an invitation from Regional Chairman, Mark Crawford, she travelled to Mahdia via bus with the understanding that she would have been attending a two-day RDC meeting at Kato. Lowe was supposed to board the RDC’s Chartered aircraft on May 11 from Mahdia to Kato.
She said, “When I arrived at Mahdia on Saturday afternoon an Air Services flight representative informed me that my name was scratched off the list by the REO, Ronald Harsaywak, and only the seven Regional Councillors will be traveling to Kato. He further explained that they will be taking up a drum of fuel and 250 pounds of fresh meat so they did not have space.”
Lowe said that since she knew that three councilors were unable to make the trip, she advised the Air Services representative likewise and argued that she could now board the plane since space was no longer a problem.
“The Air Services flight representative was pleased to tell me that he had strict instructions from the REO not to allow anyone else on the plane,” said Lowe.
The following day, she went to the airstrip to inquire further from another Air Services representative, if she could board the plane but he too had strict instructions not to let anyone else board that flight.
According to Lowe, it is known that aircraft do not hesitate to carry passengers from the various hinterland locations. “In fact, I would think that they have a duty, provided they have the space, to assist anyone who is sick, or who needs to travel to another village since transportation is a major problem in the hinterland.
“I was not a patient but I am a Parliamentarian and as an indigenous Parliamentarian I have a special interest in the welfare of my fellow indigenous brothers and sisters.”
She said that the issues that are of great concern to the people of the Pakaraimas would have been highlighted at the Region Eight RDC since the Toshaos from all, or almost all of the villages of Region Eight, would have attended this meeting.
The MP said, “I would have heard, first hand, about these issues and would have been able to make the necessary representations to the relevant Ministers and also in Parliament on their behalf. Instead, I was obviously discriminated against because I am an Alliance For Change Parliamentarian; I feel victimized and consider the whole situation one of political sabotage.”
Lowe now calls on the Minister of Local Government, Norman Whittaker and Minister of Amerindian Affairs, Pauline Sukhai, to look into this matter with the aim of putting a stop to such “crude and disrespectful” acts towards indigenous MPs of the Opposition.
Lowe said that her occupying a vacant seat on the flight to Kato would not have cost the Region a dollar more since it was a chartered flight, paid for by the Region Eight RDC.
She noted that apparently, as indigenous Parliamentarians, she and Marcello were supposed to vote for everything on the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs budget whether it made sense or not. She said that if that position was taken they would have been party to millions of dollars being spent on a “dubious programme” that does nothing to empower the Amerindian youth.
“Personally, I refuse to be party to wasteful spending of hard-earned Guyanese monies.”
Marcello too had lamented that she was recently treated disrespectfully by a welfare officer at the Amerindian Hostel.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
Dem signs need calibrating
Dem Boys Seh… Kaieteur News- Dem boys bin pass one of dem fancy speed meter signs wah de guvament put up fuh tell drivers... more
Forget Begging Rich Nations: Caribbean Countries Should Act to Save Themselves
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- It has long been evident that the world’s richest nations, especially those responsible... more
Weekend Cartoon
