Latest update June 15th, 2026 1:01 AM
Public outrage
Editorial…
(Kaieteur News) – We are impressed that Guyanese can still get angry when the PPPC Government crosses unthinkable lines. The government’s attempt to close the Sexual Offenders’ Registry (Registry) to public scrutiny ignited a firestorm. Its own supporters went wild with rage. Human Services and Social Security Minister, Vindya Persaud advanced the secret Registry, and became the face of all that is wrong with this government. When President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharat Jagdeo recognised the danger, both rearranged their face to emerge as knights in shining armour. The secret Registry is gone, risks to the PPP Government ease and, hopefully, citizens feel more secure.
We at this paper hope that citizens will have access to a Registry that is inclusive, all sexual offenders identified. Parents and family members, and communities, know who is in their neighbourhood, the level of watchfulness they must maintain to protect their young boys and girls. To protect genders of all ages from predators. What alarms is how the PPPC Government could be so bold that a minister could announce this, only for the president and vice president to cave under public pressure, and remove the planned secrecy provision.
We are baffled that the Attorney General’s office would have worked closely with the subject minister and her team of advisers, and that a proposed Sexual Offenders’ Registry with a secrecy clause was not removed. Who was irresponsible in this situation, the attorney general’s office, or the minister’s group? President Ali is in charge of a government with a seven-seat majority in parliament. Was either he or the Cabinet that cavalier as not to take serious issue with a secret Registry? A seven-seat parliamentary majority encourages that kind of slackness.
Truth be told, there may have been some level of awareness at all levels within the government of the Registry being closed to public examination. However, the government’s arrogance is at such a height that Guyanese are now taken for granted, disdained that much. The people would let the secret Registry slide, like they have done with so many other serious issues. On this occasion, the government went too far, pushed concerned Guyanese to a place that represents the worst for their interests. The safety of their families is at stake, and their own peace of mind (and confidence in their leaders) taking a battering.
President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo may fool themselves into believing that their rescue mission left them looking heroic. They may with Guyanese who do not put too much value on morals and standards. There are many others in this country, however, who see them in the role of firefighters rushing out to put out the fire that the government itself stoked. In cases like these, there is usually some collateral damage. Minister Persaud gets to absorb that blow. There is no way that a secret Sexual Offenders’ Registry should have gotten past her, or an inch beyond her ministry. What to think of the Attorney General’s office is more on the tricky side. Was the AG’s office asleep at the wheel? Was the AG’s office part of a scheme to knowingly run the secret Registry past the public, in the hope of generating the usual disinterested and lethargic reactions? These are not confessions that governments make, and even when there is the leadership character to do so, it is never the whole nine yards of what and who were involved.
At this belated hour, President Ali is now all wisdom and with sleeves rolled up in full engagement. He speaks of the issue being referred to a select committee. Where was he before? What did the president know, and how much of it was examined with a fine-tooth comb? Why did he not act before, and had that offending provision that guaranteed sexual offenders’ layers of cover excluded, never to see the light of day?
The safety of Guyanese should never be exposed to this level of casualness manifested by a couple of ministers, more than one leader, and a Cabinet that has added to its reputation of the gang that can neither think straight nor shoot straight. The secret Sexual Offenders’ Registry is out. Some government official should suffer that same fate.
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