Dear Editor,

I WAS very pleased that the press reported that (independent) investigators, who were probing the assault allegation against Minister Kwame McCoy by APNU+AFC Member of Parliament (MP) Tabitha Sarabo-Halley have found “… that there is no evidence of a physical assault” after rummaging through relevant footage of the supposed assault.

We all recall that on March 4, 2021, that House Speaker, Manzoor Nadir, was forced into suspending a parliamentary session, and why? The reason: “APNU+AFC [A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change] members had begun to disruptively bang on their desks, demanding that Government Member of Parliament, Minister Kwame McCoy, be removed, and apparently they had a right to be accommodated.

Mr. Editor, APNU+AFC have not come to grips with modern day reality, and I refer herein to the ‘inability to hide the truth.’ All we have to do is to revisit the recent post-March attempts to rig the Guyana Elections. It is patently clear that they seemed to be afflicted with a form of dumbness that befuddles the mind. Their attempts were observed live by the entire world (who had an interest). The worrying part back then was that when incontrovertible and debunking evidence was confronting them from the general public, the observers and the PPP/C (People’s Progressive Party/Civic), the APNU+AFC continued to live in a world of pretence. Their phobia with transparency is unprecedented.

Now let us look at the series of events. We note that this issue all stemmed from “Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones (alleging) that an Opposition MP, who(m) he did not name (at the time) had been assaulted by Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, Kwame McCoy”. At a later time, APNU+AFC named the MP as former minister Tabitha Sarabo-Halley.
Where is the evidence? In an atmosphere of modern technology, acquiring ‘live evidence’ is just too facile. In fact, some human rights advocates have become so emboldened that they ‘push’ for matters of assault and verbal attacks to be heaped on them. This is because even the everyday non-professionals have recording and filming devices. So it begs the question: “Do the Christopher Joneses of ANU+AFC think they can just hurl accusations and then be heard or believed?”

Mr. Editor, this kind of opposition filibustering is not new in Guyana’s Parliament. I vividly remember how in 2012, Speaker of the House, Raphael Trotman, and Opposition Leader, David Granger, sought to unconstitutionally stop the then Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee, from tabling any new bills in the National Assembly. Preposterous! So, this infantile time-wasting, trouble-making tactic, even though non-effective, still permeates the opposition.

I point out that Minister Kwame had indicated that this kind of behaviour was forthcoming. In his Budget 2021 preliminary remarks, he did intone that, according to his own intelligence, the opposition was hell bent on disruption, via ‘heckling’ or a ‘walk out’ and disarming them with such a prognosis then meant that APNU+AFC had to concoct another evil.

Let me remind the public, dear Editor that APNU+AFC has in their artillery ‘horses for courses.’ This said, Christopher Jones seems bent on some form of vendetta. In August 2020, the former Sports Director faced allegations of simple larceny of a quantity of barber chairs among other items reportedly belonging to the State. All the items were taken from his house.

That exposure of the man redounded from a search of his property, after an audit carried out at the former Ministry of Social Protection, showed that they had approved the payout of almost $5 million under the Region Four administration for the procurement of equipment for a barbershop under the Sustainable Livelihood and Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) programme.
Police actually ended up seizing “… a number of boxes believed to contain barbershop equipment purchased as part of a $4 million government-funded project under the Sustainable Livelihood and Entrepreneurial Development (SLED).

I now rest my case. Minister Kwame was vindicated, and I hope he will prosecute his agents provocateurs.

Yours sincerely,

Alvin Hamilton