THE private sector continues to call for a return to normalcy, amidst calls for a boycott of businesses that have been labelled as supporters of the incumbent People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C).
Private Sector Commission Chairman, Ramesh Dookhoo, and several other stakeholders met yesterday on the matter and are expected to meet again today to further address the impact of the boycott call.
Dookhoo, in a prior interview, had stressed that careful consideration should be given as protests are organised, since they would affect the lives of all Guyanese.
The PSC chairman said members have always encouraged good corporate social responsibility, as he urged business owners to get back to a state of normalcy.
Reports from the PSC indicate that Guyana is booming, and based on the economic growth figure for the first half of this year, it is likely that the private sector will surpass its projections.

CONTRADICTORY
Meanwhile the Youth Coalition for Transformation (YCT), comprising young people from the eight parties that constitute APNU, has claimed responsibility for the call for a boycott of PPP/C supported businesses in Guyana, adding that the call originated with the YCT organization and not with the APNU leadership.
Many stakeholders question where the separation is, since YCT is the combination of the collation parties’ youth arms, including the Guyana Youth and Student Movement (GYSM) of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR).
“The YCT has encouraged a boycott against all PPP/C supported businesses,” its statement said.
The group, in the statement, stressed that it will not be distracted, will not be intimidated, will not be swayed, and will not be pressured into ending its struggle for equal rights and justice in the Guyanese society.
The release said, “To clarify our position, the YCT advocates a boycott of Christmas shopping, except for necessities. The YCT advocates a boycott against Kashief and Shanghi, Hits & Jams, and a list of businesses soon to be released. The YCT advocates that all disenfranchised citizens return to their communities, clean up the trash, plant their own community gardens, and start their own community businesses and shop locally as much as they can. The YCT advocates that community members launch self-help programmes to clean community waterways, community playgrounds, community centres and build homes for each other. The YCT advocates that “each one, teach one” and that we the disenfranchised become less dependent on those who support the oppressive PPP/C regime.”
The youth movement adds, “The YCT finds any attempt to paint disenfranchised citizens who are fighting for their democratic freedoms and human rights as hooligans is to be racist.”

Leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC), Khemraj Ramjattan, told the Guyana Chronicle, yesterday, that this move does not bode well.
“It is an unwelcome sign…in a sense, what is happening is that this group is calling for a boycott of people that are not of their political persuasion,” he said.
Ramjattan added that each person is entitled to his opinion and freedom of expression, and maintains that, at this time, a boycott call has a discriminatory effect.
He explained that regardless of whom the business organizations support, such a call discriminates and chastises them for their political views – an act that has no place in a democratic society.
“This is a democracy,” Ramjattan stressed, “If the people supported the PPP/C or the AFC or the APNU, then they ought not to be chastised for their choice.”
According to him, such actions must be condemned.
“I don’t understand how we can be boycotting people. Here you boycott people, you might be even boycotting supporters of APNU who are working in those shops, and I think it’s just a wild call” the AFC Leader said.