–Minister McCoy says, blasts AFC leader for disingenuous sentiments
–highlights President Ali’s previous engagement with residents, efforts to improve lives

ALLIANCE For Change (AFC) Leader Nigel Hughes has been accused of exploiting the woes of Leopold Street residents to cover up the appalling allegations that he has been ensnared in, Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister, Kwame McCoy, has said.

Just one day after Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo provided evidence that Hughes had obtained 75 acres of land after the APNU+AFC government was toppled by the passage of the 2018 no-confidence motion, and during the five-month impasse after voters had cast their ballots on polling day, the AFC Leader posted some pictures of Leopold Street.
He claimed that the residents of the area, which is close to his long-standing law firm, have been neglected.

In response to Hughes’ sudden “care” for the people, Minister McCoy in a statement on his Facebook page, said that Hughes is “obviously desperate” to deflect from the glaring stain of his state-land scandal, and is now clinging to the politics of “distraction, weaponising poverty and exploiting the struggles” of Leopold Street, Georgetown residents in a “pathetic” attempt to shift focus from his own actions.

“It is the classic playbook of Hughes to create a spectacle, parade suffering, pretend to care, divert, distort, and deceive. But no amount of performative sympathy can erase the truth,” McCoy wrote.

The minister then added that Leopold Street is not a newfound revelation because it has existed right in the backyard of Hughes’ own law firm, an institution planted in the community since the 1960s.

With that said, he asked: “So, where was his outrage all along? Where was his concern, his intervention, his advocacy?”
However, this sort of behaviour from Hughes is nothing new, as the minister brought up the recent situation of Hughes previously claiming to have rescued 50 Warrau Indigenous Indians, including very young children and then abandoning them.

“The template is the same and that is to exploit the vulnerable, manufacture a crisis, play the hero and discard when inconvenient. It is nothing short of political parasitism,” Minister McCoy stated.

Further, the minister refuted the claims of neglect and stated that President, Dr Irfaan Ali had previously engaged residents of Leopold Street, and it was not to “gawk, not to posture, not to make a mockery of the people’s struggles” but it was to create real, tangible solutions.

Minister McCoy said that Hughes has conveniently ignored that residents of areas such as Tiger Bay and Lamaha Street were provided with housing solutions, and also conveniently ignore that some of those very individuals who accepted house lots have returned to the same informal settlements they once occupied, or that others have opportunistically taken up abandoned or private properties without engaging in the formal housing process as is the case in Leopold Street.

Several residents took the initiative, formed a company, integrated themselves into the formal economy through block-making and construction, while the process is ongoing on a housing solution of 20 homes along the Soesdyke-Linden Highway, he said.

“This is what leadership looks like while Hughes will continue to engage in cheap political games,” the minister stated.
McCoy affirmed that President Ali’s One Guyana initiative is a structured, policy-driven, results-oriented commitment to collective progress where government, the private sector, and citizens work in tandem to uplift all Guyanese.

“It is not about grandstanding, not about cheap political stunts, not about pretending that poverty just appeared overnight, but about real, tangible, measurable action. And action is exactly what the government has taken,” he said.

McCoy then pointed out how Guyana’s future is standing on firm footing, given the investments being made by the government.

“What Hughes is doing is not just deceitful, it is vile. To exploit the struggles of a people for self-preservation, to manipulate the hardships of a community he has long ignored for the sake of political theatre, to pretend to be the voice of the voiceless when he has had power, privilege, and access to wealth for decades and has done absolutely nothing to uplift those very people it is moral bankruptcy,” the minister said.

Adding to this, he said if Hughes had an “ounce of sincerity,” he would have been a part of the solution instead of using the people to scramble to rewrite his narrative as the selfless advocate when his history tells a far different story.