–point to his deliberate distortion of facts to peddle untruths about the gov’t
MINISTER of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Oneidge Walrond, who is leading a delegation at the Third session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday, exposed the inaccuracies presented by the representative of the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G) at the forum.

During a live broadcast on Wednesday, Minister Walrond noted that there were troubling things that were made in the presentation by Nigel Hughes who represented IDPADA-G at the forum.
She referenced a specific quote that Hughes mentioned in relation to the Guyana’s presentation to the human rights committee, and the quote that the committee was concerned about the absence of anti-discrimination legislation that may extend beyond discrimination in employment.

Walrond said: “This is absolutely not so, that report and that specific quote were mentioned in relation to purported discrimination against the LGBTQ community.”
She related that the human rights committee made a point that Guyana has yet to extend anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ persons, and noted that that is the quote that was lifted and used inaccurately.

“This is what the quote was lifted and meant to apply to, not to the fact that we don’t have anti-discrimination laws for afro-Guyanese and to use that as a basis for that argument was incredibly disingenuous and very disappointing,” Walrond added.
Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton who was part of the delegation, said that Hughes deliberately utilised the report inaccurately.
“I think he deliberately did that to hoodwink the people who were at the conference,” Hamilton said.

The Minister of Labour said that the organisation and its representatives believe that they are making the government look bad but do not understand that they make the country look bad in turn.
However, he added that Guyana is far removed from the type of discrimination and casting aside of people of African descent displayed in other parts of the world, and it has been so for decades.

Hamilton went on to note that in every sphere of activity, Afro-Guyanese participated at all levels since the country became independent.
“Development as regards present day development, people of African descent are participants in the development, but these guys, the only thing they know to do is the fan the flames,” Hamilton said.