– says PPP is taking ‘bread out of his mouth’

YOUTHS for David Granger, a group of the main Opposition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), has come out in full support of newly-appointed Public Relations Officer (PRO) of GECOM, Richard Francois, expressing their contention that the PPP is “seeking to take bread out of the mouth of a young, enterprising and industrious young man.”

POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS
Francios, according to General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party, Mr. Clement Rohee, is said to have “political affiliations” which would “compromise” his position as an official of GECOM. As such, Rohee made a call on GECOM to explain and re-examine Francois’s appointment, since his party believes that there are incidents involving the GECOM official which display a lack of professionalism due to his alleged affiliations.
The General Secretary further noted that Francois is openly sympathetic and supports the political Opposition. He, however, failed to provide an answer as to which political Opposition, Francios has affiliations with.
Youths for David Granger is; however, condemning the recent concerns raised by the PPP, labelling them as “seeking to take bread out of the mouth of a young, enterprising and industrious young man.”
As such, the group in a statement related that “It is trite law that every Guyanese has a right to work and engage in productive employment irrespective of their sex, race religion and political persuasion. Further the right to work is a basic human right and is also embosomed in our Constitution.”
“We the Youths for David Granger condemn this, the latest desecration of our Constitution by the People’s Progressive Party / Civic Regime to deny Mr. Richard Francois on the ill-conceived basis that he may be aligned to an opposition Party. This is a blatant and ill- spirited attack on the youths of this nation that have studied and worked hard and yet remain unemployed and underemployed,” the statement said.
The PPP in light of expressing concerns about the appointment of Francios was described, as seeking to “take bread out of the mouth of a young, enterprising and industrious young man,” by the APNU youth arm.
GECOM was also admonished that if they cower to this “unprincipled and unconstitutional” request by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic, they, the Youths for David Granger will use every means at their disposal to ensure that Richard Francois gets justice.

RESUME
Francois has served as a Strategic Communications Consultant at the Ministry of Education, a Freelance Broadcaster at the National Communication Network, a Change Communication Officer at the Ministry of Home Affairs, as the Director-Corporate Communications and Public Relations for Total Communications in the United Arab Emirates, the Public Relations Consultant for Promoseven Weber Shandwick in the United Arab Emirates, the Public Relations Manager for Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc., and an Assistant Human Resource Manager at GuySuco.
He is also the holder of a Masters in Marketing Communications from Middlesex University, London and has a Degree in Communications. Armed with such distinction of service both locally and internationally, he applied for and was appointed as the Public Relations Officer of the Guyana Elections Commission.

(By Ravin Singh)