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Challenge to Minister Cathy Hughes on D’Urban Park

Dec 29, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
I want to refer to the 46th sitting of the National Assembly which was held at the Parliament Building on November 21st, 2016. I left these comments that I heard from Minister Cathy Hughes to rest a bit because I could not believe the fabrication she was peddling so I pretended that after Hansard were published I would be proven wrong and Mrs. Hughes would have been proven correct. This was never to be; exactly what I heard is exactly what is in Hansard.
How dare Mrs. Hughes from the great Cholmondeley family descend to this kind of low level politics to explain away corruption, financial conspiracies and venality? Her father, Hugh Cholmondeley, that gentle giant who worked with a team brought the Herdmandston Accord to Guyana. This is the kind of work that family did. I am absolutely sure that he would have been very much ashamed of her performance at this massive cover up of financial abuse. Who is influencing this sway by Mrs. Hughes to the political gutter? It cannot be her great husband, Nigel because he also is another gentle giant who also did much good work to heal Guyana.
So why is Mrs. Hughes wounding Guyana by misleading the Guyanese people on this Ponzi scheme project of the Granger boys call the Durban Park Project?
So if I follow her argument in the House, in a haste to have a big march for President Granger within 12 months, it was OK in her books to break all the rules and regulations at a cost to the nation of $1.2 billion. That is over 200 completed middle-class house “down the drain” because of this massive act of financial squander by Team Granger. The sad part because of the state of the economy, these funds are lost forever and will never be touched by the poor people of Guyana anytime soon; thus the bitter medicine from the 2017 Budget. That is 200 Guyanese families who would have lost because Team Granger wants to have a marching band for a day. That is a blasted expensive marching band – $1.2 billion.
Who cares if the 2015 campaign was bitterly fought or not Mr. Hughes, it is no reason to waste $1.2 billion and incompetently at that. But what is even more painful is that many of these millions were allegedly leaked from its intended purposes into private hands and into the accounts of Congress Place and Mr. Hughes has the audacity to want to defend this bogus scheme? Is this what she is made of this day, a PR spokesperson for the financial conspiracy? It is expected that a former Minister of Tourism would have risen with figures and facts to prove that the expenditure of $1.2 billion did deliver on the benefits to justify the cost, but none of this was forthcoming from the Minister. Rather Mrs. Hughes launched into false innuendo and subterfuge in a sea of deception in her attempt to fool the people.
This is not about a glass being half-empty or half-full; this is about some 235,000 of our people are living in poverty at the 50th anniversary. That money could have done something significant for them. Every man, woman, and child living below the poverty line could have benefited from a tax free check of $5,000 each (averaging about $20,000 per family) and we would still have money left to do the marches and flag raising at the National Stadium, the fireworks at Ayangana and a world class dinner at the Convention Center. Whoever authorized that the government proceeds with the Durban Park Project has to be a first class pretender that is nothing but a certified incompetent in financial matters.
One only have to read the newspapers today and they shall see that too many of the foreign visitors posted their barrels and brought their clothes from overseas to justify all this spending by the government. In the final analysis, these Jubilee celebrations were a financial loss to the nation all because a former soldier who is hooked on paraded had to fulfill a personal fetish at the nation’s expense. I dare Minister Cathy Hughes to prove me wrong. So what was the net financial impact of the jubilee celebration Mrs. Hughes?
Lisa Ally

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