THE government said it remains committed to an all-inclusive, people-centred development of Guyana as it warns Guyanese and others at home and abroad to beware of Rickford Burke, a rabid opposition activist in the US, who appears hell-bent on fuelling ethnic animosity in Guyana.

Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira in a statement on Monday described comments made by Burke at a townhall meeting he organised on October 30 as racist propaganda and contended that it was unfortunate that a few local officials in the US, who rely on the electorate of Brooklyn, gave attention to him.

“It was extraordinary that any of these local elected leaders would attend such a racist forum organised by people who were silently or openly supportive when: the APNU+AFC Coalition conspired with senior officials of GECOM repeatedly to delay the General and Regional elections. This went on for 14 months following their loss of government to a no-confidence motion on December 18, 2018; President Granger and his Cabinet had the highest number of court rulings in the CARICOM on constitutional violations; this was a government abusing the Constitution with executive lawlessness; the APNU+AFC government conspired with senior officials in the Guyana Elections Commission to remain in office although they had lost the elections; 7,000 sugar workers, majority Indo-Guyanese, 1,972 Indigenous/Amerindian Community Service Officers and 2,000 public servants, who were majority one ethnic group and/or considered ‘politically incorrect’ by their administration were terminated; the APNU+AFC government discriminated against communities that did not vote for them during their five-year tenure of office; the APNU+AFC government ministers brazenly dispensed with Guyana’s assets through blatant acts of corruption, and when the ANPU+AFC Government attempted to steal the oil revenues of Guyana,” Minister Teixeira said, as she pointed out that Burke is trying to rehabilitate his discredited image following recent allegations that saw the police issuing wanted bulletins for his arrest.

The forum was also addressed by former Assistant Commissioner Paul Slowe, who has been charged with sexual assault of a woman in Guyana. Slowe, the minister reminded, was suspended as Chairman of the Police Service Commission because he refused to appoint senior police officers recommended by the then Commissioner of Police (acting), 90 per cent of whom were Afro-Guyanese.

“Why didn’t these local elected officials call out Slowe for holding back the upward mobility of many of his fellow Afro-Guyanese senior officers in the Guyana Police Force?” she asked.

Minister Teixeira said unlike the picture that Burke and others are trying to paint of Guyana under the PPP/C Government, the affairs of government are being managed transparently and inclusively since its assumption of office on August 2, 2020.

She also pointed out that in contrast to the PNC and APNU+AFC, the records would show that the PPP/C government has brought economic and social development and lifted Guyana from being one of the poorest countries in this hemisphere to one of the fastest-growing economies.

“This is accompanied with people-centred policies and programmes targeting the poor and vulnerable, and constitutional and parliamentary reform to strengthen this new born democracy and its institutions after the first free and fair election in October 1992,” the minister noted.