Cabinet charges GHRA with also downplaying budget cuts
CABINET has also noted recent statements made by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) “trying to downplay the impact of the budget cuts” by the combined Opposition – A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC). Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon said so yesterday, at his weekly post-Cabinet media briefing, in Office of the President, Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, Georgetown.
He said: “Imagine the focus in their recent release, trying to downplay the impact of the budget cuts that were made by the opposition APNU and the AFC.
“In their haste, that is GHRA, to go to press to decry citizens’ concerns, being highlighted by the Administration, did they consider the impact on specifically the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), the constitutional body, a constitutional rights commission?”
Luncheon challenged: “Let the GHRA tell Guyanese what they thought about the budget cuts, that the opposition made, that would essentially close down the ERC.”
He said this should be no surprise, “as the GHRA was one of the many so-called bodies that did not raise their voices and, indeed, remained silent during the earlier legal attempt by the PNCR (the People’s National Congress Reform) to close down the ERC.”
Luncheon noted that the PNCR failed that time, in court and asked: “How else, other than pure spite, can Guyanese describe this second attempt, this time in the Legislature.”
“$1 to run the constitutional Rights Commission dedicated to ethnic affairs and ethnic relations for one year and the GHRA, again, is yet to comment,” he observed.
The HPS questioned: “Can the GHRA publicly comment now on the spectacle of elements of the ERC staff running to beg the opposition for their jobs, their future, their livelihoods, their welfare?”

Twisted logic
“Maybe in their own distorted, twisted logic that is acceptable and warrants no concerns of theirs,” he offered.
Luncheon said the GHRA’s most recent statement attracted quite a bit of attention and responses were not slow in coming and the utterances were criticised, primarily, by the Administration.
With respect to the Office of the President (OP), he said it adds to its earlier comments, stating:”Can the GHRA executive advise the Guyanese public whether they, as a rights body, did examine the impact of the APNU/AFC budget cuts on a constitutional rights commission, the ERC?
“Can the GHRA advise Guyanese what, if any, was their deliberation on that matter, assuming, of course, its importance was shared by them, the members of the executive?” Luncheon wondered.
In a previous statement, last weekend, OP flayed the GHRA for what it said regarding the recent budget cuts by the parliamentary opposition parties and warned that the “GHRA should avoid acting as an apologist for the Opposition.”
OP also said: “It is inconceivable that Guyanese would believe, as the GHRA would want us to, that the recent budget cuts by the parliamentary opposition parties, APNU and AFC, are cosmetic and intended to have no effect.”

Public anger
Additionally, the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), at the weekend, as well, said it is appalled by the GHRA statement in relation to the public anger and outcry at the APNU/AFC budget cuts, of more than $18 billion.
“Rather than empathising with the Guyanese public’s anger at the cuts, the GHRA, in a major cover-up on behalf of APNU/AFC, has sought to justify such actions and has attacked those who have highlighted and commented on these most draconian actions of the opposition,” the PPP/C said.
“One would expect that the human rights organisation of any country or an organisation that has a human rights orientation, would adopt a position publicly and privately that ensures that it canvasses for positions that are supportive for human rights and the welfare of people,” it stated.