The Ministry of the Presidency has refuted two headlines which appeared in the Thursday, April 14, 2016 editions of the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News respectively.The headline in the Kaieteur News read, “Private ‘Jet trip’ was paid for by Chinese Gov’t – President Granger,” while the one in the Stabroek News read, “Beijing paid for Minister’s private jet rides.”
A statement from the President’s office clarified that the words ‘paid for’ were never used by the President.
As it relates to the story in the Kaieteur News, the statement noted, “nowhere in the content of the article, nor in the source of the content, which was a recording of an informal interview done by members of the media, who were at the Ministry of the Presidency to cover the swearing-in of the Advisory Council on the Prerogative of Mercy on Wednesday, does President Granger say that the trip was ‘paid for’ by the Chinese Government,” the statement noted.
According to the President’s office, during the interview, the President was asked whether Minister of State Joseph Harmon has provided an explanation for the picture, which was published in the Kaieteur News Sunday Edition, in which he is surrounded by executive members of Chinese logging company, Bai Shan Lin.
And his verbatim response was: “Yes. He has explained it to the Cabinet. He had to visit, as you know the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China was in China at that time and he had to go to about three of four different cities and the Ambassador arranged the executive transport because of the distance between the cities and the amount of time he had at his disposal. So it was arranged by the Chinese Government to enable him to travel to different cities to conduct the business he was there to conduct.”
“The Ministry of the Presidency is calling on both newspapers to [effect] immediate corrections and retractions of the contentious headlines and is requesting that media entities act more responsibly when quoting the President.
“While the Government of Guyana promotes and stands solidly in support of press freedom, it is important that the media treat responsibly, their role to provide accurate information to the members of the public,” the release said.