THE revelations on Monday by the leaders of the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G) have made the Guyana Rastafari Council irate, causing the body to take a swipe on social media at leaders of IDPADA-G.

The council’s brief statement on Tuesday pointedly questioned the methodology used by IDPADA-G to select groups to benefit from funding they had previously received from the Government of Guyana since 2018.
In the statement, the Rastafari Council added that there are 40 “black groups” in the assembly, but alleged that the only three signatories to the organisation’s bank account are all from one group, Cuffy 250 Committee.

The group further claimed that it refused to join the “political bandwagon” of IDPADA-G leading up to the 2020 General and Regional Elections (GRE), which, the council said, caused them to be side-lined by IDPADA-G.
“IDPADA-G was basically hijacked by Cuffy 250 and funded by the former gov [sic] to campaign during the last election. Because we didn’t join their political bandwagon they sidelined us and we had to leave,” the Rastafari Council said through its Facebook page.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, also on Tuesday, noted that he was not impressed by the explanations put forward by the leadership of IDPADA-G regarding the nearly $500 million of government funding allocated to it and spent between 2018 and 2022.

Nandlall made these remarks during his weekly Facebook live-streamed programme ‘Issues in the News’.
Dissecting some of the explanations proffered by the organisation’s leadership, the Attorney General stressed that there was little information provided about IDPADA-G’s projects.

“I have listened to this press conference held by this organisation and as a Guyanese, I am not impressed at all with the explanation proffered attempting to account for how this money was spent,” he said.
He added that while some projects were mentioned including the hosting of a youth conference, it was not publicised where same was held and what was the value of the conference.

In relation to the funding of scholarships, the AG questioned who were the recipients of these scholarships, which universities the students were being financed to attend, or whether the scholarship opportunities were advertised for all to apply.

Additionally, he said the significant event pointed to by the organisation was the ‘market day’ event at Mocha Arcadia, East Bank Demerara (EBD).
“Now, against the backdrop of $500 million, how much would it cost to organise a market day?

In a village, not across the country; in one village… and that event is identified by those who are trying to justify these expenditures as one of the signal accomplishments of this organisation for which public monies have been spent,” the Attorney General said.

Further, he highlighted the revelation of the spending of close to $5 million to conduct a survey to enable farmers to get flood relief grants that were being distributed by the government.
Efforts to contact Chairman of IDPADA-G Vincent Alexander for a comment were unsuccessful. The person who answered the phone said there were many calls to that number asking for Vincent Alexander, but denied that Alexander owned that number.