– Dr. Luncheon

The poor turnout at the City Hall meeting yesterday.

As opposition political parties met with civil society yesterday to advance their plan to prove allegations of links between the Guyana Government and drug trafficker Roger Khan, the administration called for several questions to be put on the discussion table.

Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon, in a statement, challenged People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) to disclose its role in the tragedies that affected Guyana in the period 2001 and 2008, as well as the basis for their support and those of the Alliance For Change (AFC) for the Buxton gang during the period.

“Would the PNCR support a full probe into such matters? Would the PNCR support a probe into the whereabouts of weapons, the arms that were provided to the party when they constituted the government in the 1970s, arms and ammunition that are still unaccounted for?” the Government spokesperson queried.

Dr. Luncheon also questioned whether the opposition parties are sincere in offering this spectacle as a dominant issue affecting Guyanese today.

Equally important, he said, was whether the opposition parties would not consider Parliament, the constituted political decision making body, as the most appropriate forum to deal with the critical issues, political and otherwise.

He further asked whether the opposition political parties would agree that extra parliamentary protests create increased tension and instability in Guyana and whether they would support the efforts of the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) administration in the abolition of the monopoly in telecommunication services that is currently enjoyed by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T), following the privatisation deal of the Guyana Telecommunications Corporation in 1991.

“These are some of the questions that Guyanese should be interested in having answers from or as a result of the intended consultations between the opposition parties and civil society groupings. Many other questions should be asked at what, hopefully, would be future meetings between the opposition parties and civil society groupings in Guyana,” Dr. Luncheon noted.

The opposition group involves the AFC, Guyana Action Party (GAP), National Front Alliance, PNCR, United Party and the Working People’s Alliance. However, what was supposed to be a discussion about allegations of Government involvement with Roger Khan turned into a heated disagreement.

General Secretary of the Caribbean Congress of Labour, Lincoln Lewis, boldly stated that the meeting was just another talk shop that would have little or no results, and proposed that the agenda be diverted to other issues which he considered more important. His statement was met with great opposition from PNCR leader Robert Corbin. (GINA)