Dear Editor,
REFERENCE is made to a letter from Mr Lincoln Lewis, captioned: “Under Jagdeo’s presidency the bauxite industry self-contributing Pension Fund worth more than $2.5Billion was destroyed” (KN 2023-02-13).

Therein, Mr Lewis not only repeats previously debunked accusations about the PPP/C government’s treatment of workers in the bauxite industry, but also launches into a wide-ranging diatribe, accusing the government of racism and discrimination.

It is no secret that Mr Lewis currently finds common cause with the APNU+AFC and the contrived racialization of issues is consistent with what is evidently the political strategy of the main political opposition.

While almost all of Mr Lewis’s accusations have previously been comprehensively discredited, we are aware that every year or so, when he revives these claims there may be people who have never noticed them before. It is for this reason that we respond.

Firstly, Mr Lewis asserts that Vice-President Jagdeo is “squatting on the people’s interest” and I think it is incumbent upon him to explain this cryptic assertion.

If he is implying as his associates in the opposition do, that the APNU+AFC “won” the last election, he should have the moral and intellectual courage to forthrightly posit this discredited position, so that we can deal with it. He should not hide behind cryptic innuendoes.

If this is not what he means, he should say what he does mean, so that people can engage him to the extent that what he says merits engagement.

Secondly, it is incumbent upon Mr Lewis to prove (not merely assert) that the Prime Minister does not function as the Leader of Government Business in the National Assembly.

He should also give us the benefit of his expertise on Constitutional Law and to educate us on the “functions” of the First Vice-President following which he should prove that the Prime Minister does not perform those functions.

Should Mr Lewis be able to prove these two assertions, we can then proceed to treat with the unsubtle race rhetoric that is embodied in his subsequent statement that the Prime Minister “appears content to support the [alleged but unproven] constitutional violation” and all that follows.

Mr Lewis then goes on to make his oft-repeated claims that PPP/C governments have discriminated against bauxite workers, but support sugar workers.

The objective of making this comparison is obvious. Mr Lewis has been making these claims repeatedly for well over two decades. On most occasions, when he makes these accusations typically in vague and sweeping terms, there have been comprehensive, factual, and detailed responses by former Prime Minister and now Ambassador Samuel Hinds, who time and again has proven Mr Lewis to be incorrect.

However, every year or two, Mr Lewis simply re-asserts these claims, probably in the hope that he finds a new audience or that people have forgotten that his claims have been comprehensively and credibly demolished by Ambassador Hinds.

For example, please see letter in the Stabroek News dated February 8, 2016, by Ambassador Hinds (The PPP/C has taken identical positions on bauxite and sugar SN2016-02-08), almost seven years ago, which thoroughly and factually refutes each and every claim repeated by Mr Lewis on bauxite today.

Or more recently, the letter dated January 16, 2021, also by Ambassador Hinds (Afro-Guyanese benefited significantly under the PPP/C from 1992 to 2015 – SN2021-010-16) treating with a similar wide-ranging tirade from Mr Lewis.

In those letters former PM Hinds details the decades-long, consistent support to the bauxite industry, including the government’s assumption of responsibility for billions of dollars in debts racked up by the PNC administration so that Linmine and Bermine, freed of these liabilities became attractive to foreign investors, government’s continued support in keeping the industry alive when certain investors pulled out, and treats with the reason that the worker’s proposal was rejected.

Despite former PM Hinds, calm, rational and detailed refutation of Mr Lewis’s sweeping, generalised accusations, it seems that Mr Lewis intends to repeat these identical claims every few years in the hope that they eventually assume some semblance of credibility merely by repetition.

One new twist in the old saga is Mr Lewis’s implication that the Granger/Nagamootoo administration was prepared to settle the issues between Rusal and Bauxite Workers just before the 2020 Regional and General Elections.

This is a truly mind-boggling claim given that Mr Lewis on February 8, 2020, a mere three weeks before those elections publicly accused Minister Keith Scott and senior officials of the Ministry of Labour of being “a bunch of incompetent men who are working for [Rusal] against the state…” see Stabroek News February 8, 2020 “Lewis slams Scott, other labour ministry officials for ‘incompetence’ in handling RUSAL dispute.”

In that story, Mr Lewis is reported as asserting that the PPP/C administration of Mr Donald Ramotar tried seriously to resolve the issue, but that Minister Amna Ally “ran away.”

Mr Lewis should provide proof of the change of heart on the part of the APNU+AFC government between February 8, 2020 and March 2, 2020.

He knows well that he cannot, but it does not suit his purpose to acknowledge that his political kith did nothing in this regard to advance the interests of their political kin.

He basically is trying to say that the APNU was prepared to resolve these issues in order to say that the PPP/C isn’t, and for an inference of ethnic motivation to follow.

In doing so, Mr Lewis appears to have scant regard for the facts. Instead, his sole motive appears to be to advance a narrative of discrimination by whatever means necessary.

A similar intent is seen whereby Mr Lewis conflates the issues of union dues and collective bargaining. On the one hand, Mr Lewis alleges that support for the sugar industry allows GAWU to collect union dues and stay alive, while the government does not engage in collective bargaining with unions representing predominantly Afro-Guyanese workers.

These issues are distinct from each other. Mr Lewis does not allege that unions with which he sympathises are not allowed to collect union dues because he cannot so do.

The conflating of these distinct issues appears designed to contrive an example of a different standard in order to advance an accusation of ethnic discrimination.

It is in this vein that the entirety of Mr. Lewis’ letter has to be contextualised and interpreted. His sole intent appears to be to allege racial discrimination and inflame passions of the Guyanese people.

I respond here not because I believe there is the slightest merit to any of his allegations, but because regrettably, fictions, repeated often enough without being countered may eventually assume the status of truth.

Yours respectfully,
Hon. Oneidge Walrond, M.P
Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce