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AFC’s press conference: a comedy of epic proportions

Dec 02, 2024 Letters

Dear Editor,

I was pleased to see that the AFC finally managed to livestream its press conference on Friday, after a series of so-called ‘technical difficulties’ which supposedly hindered its ability to do so for several weeks. Friday, however, might have been the ideal moment for those ‘technical difficulties’ to intervene to spare the party from the embarrassment its leadership subjected it to during that press conference.

The comedic outpourings began with AFC’s technical advisor on Indigenous affairs and former member of the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) Ms Laura George. In her usual style, she sought to champion the rights of Amerindians, going as far as to call on the PPP/C Government to make financing (specifically from the sale of carbon credits) more accessible to Amerindians villages. Ms George proposed the setting up of a “fund” through which these villages would have greater access to carbon credit funds.

The irony of her proposition however, is that it was the APA – of which Ms George was the Governance and Rights Coordinator at the time – that attempted, on several occasions and as recent as this year, to prevent the Architecture for REDD+ Transaction (ART) Secretariat from issuing carbon credits to Guyana – the same carbon credits which Guyana sells to provide billions in funding to more than 240 Amerindian villages for sustainable livelihood projects.

In steps AFC’s Chairman Mr David Patterson with a groundbreaking “development” which was brought to his attention by “persons” from the United States’ Export Import (EXIM) Bank on the status of a loan to finance part of the country’s gas-to-energy project. Eager to disclose this information, Mr Patterson boldly stated on record that contrary to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo’s claim of the loan being approved: “No approval was given by the EXIM Bank, and their last meeting was in November.”

Less than three hours after his assertion, Demerara Waves Online News embarrassed Mr Patterson by reporting that the US EXIM Bank had confirmed that its board had approved a just over US$500 million loan for Guyana’s gas-to-energy project.

The closing scene, and perhaps my favourite, was by party leader Mr Nigel Hughes. He blasted the Guyana Election Commission (GECOM) for its alleged admission that it had erred and permitted an “imposture” – as Mr Hughes describes them – to sit in the National Assembly for more than a year. Mr Hughes went on to describe this suspected error by GECOM as “reckless disregard for the laws of this country”, and issued a call for the leadership of the electoral body to resign.

Editor, this is the very gentleman who attempted to defy logic by arguing that 34 and not 33 was the majority of 65, thereby extending the life of a government defeated in a no-confidence vote, allowing it to blatantly violate Guyana’s Constitution by not calling elections within the stipulated timeframe. This is the gentleman currently representing several persons accused of electoral fraud during the 2020 general and regional elections. This is the same gentleman who boldly proclaimed recently that it “can’t be right” to put the interest of Guyana and Guyanese above his client, ExxonMobil.

This is also the gentleman who ironically did not call for the resignation of former President David Granger after the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruled that his (Granger’s) unilateral appointment of the late Retired Judge James Patterson as Chairman of GECOM was unconstitutional; or when he (Granger) revoked over fifty 50-year rice farmers’ leases in Region Five and the court ruled that he violated the Constitution; or when he (Granger) attempted to seize Red House from the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre and revoke a 99-year lease and the court ruled that he violated the Constitution; or when he (Granger) reportedly summoned the Chairman of the Public Service Commission and requested that he resign, again violating the Constitution.

Editor, technical difficulties might have been serving the best interest of the AFC.

Yours faithfully

Ravin Singh

(AFC’s press conference: a comedy of epic proportions)

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