GOVERNMENT believes that Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo is best suited to head a team of government officials on social cohesion and national unity talks. This was disclosed yesterday by Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman. Trotman said it is believed that the discordant relationship between Prime Minister Nagamootoo and the People’s Progressive Party should not be a deterrent for the two to work together for a greater good.
Nagamootoo has been credited with reducing the PPP to a minority government following the 2011 elections and then this year sweeping that party from office.
“There are two schools of thought, you can say that because relations were acrimonious in the past we should avoid using those persons to talk, and there is another school of thought that says because relations are acrimonious it is better to put them to talk immediately with each other so that you don’t leave that and delay it and pretend and skirt around it,” Trotman said.
The team comprises Vice Presidents Carl Greenidge and Khemraj Ramjattan, Minister of Social Cohesion, Amna Ally, Minister of State Joseph Harmon, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams and Trotman.
“I think His Excellency favoured the second school of thought and that is to have Mr. Nagamootoo who is seen of course as a contentious person in the eyes of the Opposition up there and upfront.”
Trotman added: “Of course, if we are to have genuine and long lasting reconciliation we have to confront the devils that beset us and lessen the ways we demonise each other, deal with each other respectfully whether we like each other or not.”
Nagamootoo last Saturday at the Whim Cricket Ground, on the Corentyne, extended an invitation to the PPP to work with Government. But Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo on Tuesday said he would prefer if President Granger extends the invitation to him as opposed to the Prime Minister. “I would prefer to hear things from the President and his office… it would be more credible… I won’t respond to Nagamootoo, I don’t think he is authorised to make any offer…He can’t even secure his own concerns under the Cumminsburg Accord.”
But Trotman said the issue of trust will always exist. “There is always a talk about trust and there are a few areas where he (President) believes they can start building trust. The coalition, APNU+AFC, is in itself for all intents and purposes a national unity government and of course will always extend a hand to the PPP/C to join and to participate. Trotman noted too that the fact that the National Social Cohesion Round Table held earlier this month was endorsed by both local and international institutions like the Commonwealth and the United Nations “speaks a lot, not only for Guyana’s desire to obtain peace, but also the world wants us to reach to that stage. It is unfortunate that one of the first acts as leader of the Opposition would be to refrain from participating in something that would lead to cohesion.”