–Private Sector Commission says; highlights disinterest in meeting visiting US group
THE Private Sector Commission (PSC) has said that it is satisfied that the visiting delegation from the United States of America is neither bipartisan nor objective in its purpose for visiting Guyana and, therefore, will not be meeting with this delegation.

“Our doors remain open and we welcome legitimate delegations interested in exploring business opportunities and partnering for the development of Guyana,” the PSC said in a statement on Saturday.
Former Chair of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, Dee Dawkins-Haigler, the founder of a group that calls itself the Organisation of World Leaders (OWL), is leading a delegation in Guyana to “investigate” claims made by Opposition members of discrimination and racism.

On Friday, concerned residents of Linden voiced that they felt shunned when they tried to speak at one of the delegation’s meeting.
Exposing the one-sided nature of the group, President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, at a press conference on Saturday, questioned why the opposition was not evaluated by the US team, owing to their actions while in office, including the termination of thousands of sugar workers.

In 2017, the former APNU+AFC Coalition Government had announced the closure of several sugar estates across the country, leaving thousands of persons without jobs or sources of income. The move saw four sugar estates being closed and over 7,000 sugar workers losing their jobs.

Highlighting the slew of taxes burdened on the backs of Guyanese by the previous coalition government, President Ali then posed the question: “Are they examining the more than 200 taxes that were imposed on Afro, Indian and Amerindian people in this country by the last government that we [PPP] removed?”

Since assuming office, tax reforms have formed part of this current government’s wider agenda to improve the quality of life in Guyana and address immediate economic challenges that affect Guyanese.
These include the removal of VAT from water, electricity, building and construction materials, basic food items and household necessities.

“This is not magic,” the Head of State said while underscoring that development is at every corner of Guyana and it is because of his administration’s hard work and dedication.
He said: “This nonsense got to come to an end, where every Tom, Dick and Harry feel they can come and evaluate us.”

The visiting US group has been shunned by the government because of alleged ties to activist and hardline PPP/C critic, Rickford Burke and his organisation, the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID).
During the month of September, Burke organised a so-called “Conference on Guyana” in Washington, DC, to which the Government of Guyana was not invited, but which was attended by members of the opposition.

The one-sided engagement presented the platform for opposition members to spew concocted and fabricated narratives about the Government of Guyana, including what has been termed their usual diatribes about racial discrimination and extra-judicial killings, without utilising any fact-checking mechanism and without the government being afforded a hearing or an opportunity to respond.