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IN what some are calling a cheap and ungrateful move, the leadership of the Alliance For Change (AFC) appears to have abandoned the Chairman of Region Number 8, Mr. Mark Crawford. On Wednesday last, the Kaieteur News published several photographs of children from the Kato Primary School with the allegation that the Children are used, as many as three times per week during school hours, to fetch firewood from a distance and over a mountain in order to provide fuel to cook meals that the children enjoy as part of a Government programme.
Given that this is a community-based school feeding programme, and that written contracts were entered into by the school and the community about how they would manage the programme with the monthly money they are given, the Regional Chairman and members of the Council ought to be fully involved in ensuring that the programme is being delivered as per the rules and contracts entered into.
An excuse that they didn’t know that the rules were being breached; if they were indeed being breached, as this councillor claimed, right under their noses could only mean they are incapable of running the region or indeed leading anything.
The photographs were allegedly provided to the newspaper by one Mr. Nieem Gafoor.
There is strong evidence that could lead one to believe that Gafoor was compensated for the photographs. In fact, the KN practically admitted that they paid for the photographs. They questioned “what’s wrong with that?” and justified the payment by saying “whatever is worth having is worth paying for.”
In spite of all this, the AFC through its Member of Parliament, Valerie Garrido-Lowe chose to defend the man Gafoor instead of standing up with the Regional Chairman. She said that it is not true that he had been paid and sought to condemn the so-called exploitation of the children.
The APNU, in a release, says it is the Government’s fault that the Chairman and his council are “ineffective in delivering on their duties and responsibilities to residents who voted for them”
Observers say it is either Gafoor is more favoured than the regional chairman and so he will be more supported even though to support him means that the AFC would be exposing the lack of leadership skills of the regional chairman or, Garrido-Lowe did not understand the consequences of her blind support for Gafoor or, in their haste to score cheap political points, the AFC did not realise that their support of Gafoor would be an indictment on the leadership of the regional chairman.
The poor regional chairman is now left alone to defend himself. That would not be too hard, as all the reports coming out of the region even from persons who support the Opposition indicate that it is Gafoor who deliberately lied for his own personal gain.
Given that this is a community-based school feeding programme, and that written contracts were entered into by the school and the community about how they would manage the programme with the monthly money they are given, the Regional Chairman and members of the Council ought to be fully involved in ensuring that the programme is being delivered as per the rules and contracts entered into.
An excuse that they didn’t know that the rules were being breached; if they were indeed being breached, as this councillor claimed, right under their noses could only mean they are incapable of running the region or indeed leading anything.
The photographs were allegedly provided to the newspaper by one Mr. Nieem Gafoor.
There is strong evidence that could lead one to believe that Gafoor was compensated for the photographs. In fact, the KN practically admitted that they paid for the photographs. They questioned “what’s wrong with that?” and justified the payment by saying “whatever is worth having is worth paying for.”
In spite of all this, the AFC through its Member of Parliament, Valerie Garrido-Lowe chose to defend the man Gafoor instead of standing up with the Regional Chairman. She said that it is not true that he had been paid and sought to condemn the so-called exploitation of the children.
The APNU, in a release, says it is the Government’s fault that the Chairman and his council are “ineffective in delivering on their duties and responsibilities to residents who voted for them”
Observers say it is either Gafoor is more favoured than the regional chairman and so he will be more supported even though to support him means that the AFC would be exposing the lack of leadership skills of the regional chairman or, Garrido-Lowe did not understand the consequences of her blind support for Gafoor or, in their haste to score cheap political points, the AFC did not realise that their support of Gafoor would be an indictment on the leadership of the regional chairman.
The poor regional chairman is now left alone to defend himself. That would not be too hard, as all the reports coming out of the region even from persons who support the Opposition indicate that it is Gafoor who deliberately lied for his own personal gain.
