GUYANA’S second Executive President Hugh Desmond Hoyte, SC, was hailed as a true son of the soil who had dedicated his life’s work to development of the country and its people, at the commemorative ceremony to mark his 15th Death Anniversary.

At the Place of Heroes in the Botanical Gardens, several senior government officials, including the Ministers of State, Communities, Public Health, Social Cohesion, Social Protection and Legal Affairs gathered to pay tribute to the former president.

Hugh Desmond Hoyte, SC, was born on March 9, 1929 and served Guyana in several capacities, including Home Affairs Minister from 1969 to 1970, Finance Minister from 1970 to 1972, Economic Development Minister in 1974 to 1980, Prime Minister from 1984 to 1985 and President of Guyana from 1985 until 1992. He died on December 22, 2002.
For Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence,the late President Hoyte was a patriot who lived for the people and the country. “Hoyte was a judicious leader, an unsung hero, whose shrewdness, astute political insight and profound concern for the people charted a resolute cause to forge a united people with a firm resolve to achieve national development”, Minister Lawrence told those present.

Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General, Basil Williams, said the late President played a critical role in Guyana’s economic development and that of the Caribbean. The attorney general recalled that when Hoyte was appointed President of Guyana in 1985, “he had become one of Guyana’s most important leaders in the West Indian economic integration movement. He was Guyana’s Governor on the Caribbean Development Bank and the ACP spokesman on sugar.”

In underlining Hoyte’s legacy, he further pointed out that the former president, “more than any other minister on economic development, recognised the importance of maintaining a viable economic block.”

Hugh Desmond Hoyte, SC, was also described by the attorney general as a people’s person who recognised that the working class was vital to the development of Guyana. “By his own upbringing, he was painfully aware that the middle-class leadership, in spite of the fact that many of them had emerged from the working class, could easily ostracise this most important and powerful group by their actions and attitudes”, the attorney general explained.

The former President and Senior Counsel, was husband to the late Joyce Hoyte and father to the late Amanda and Maxine Hoyte, who both died tragically, after their vehicle had crashed into a tractor trailer, en route to the town of Linden.

During his time in office, the late president had responsibility for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) affairs under the Lomé Convention and was the ACP spokesman on sugar from 1981 to 1983. As a member of the Heads of Government of CARICOM Conference, he was charged with promoting freedom of movement within the Community and for coordinating CARICOM’S policy on the environment for the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. He was also nominated CARICOM’s spokesman on sugar.