FORMER Minister of State under the APNU+AFC Government and General Secretary of the People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R), Dawn Hastings-Williams has joined forces with US-sanctioned businessman, Azruddin Mohamed, who is campaigning for office under his party We Invest in Nationhood (WIN).
Although there have been no reports of Hastings-Williams’ resignation from the PNC/R, a post appeared on Team Mohamed’s Facebook page, which indicated that she is supporting Mohamed.
Citing information from the period she was in office, the former PNC/R General Secretary said: “Guyana as we know, is endowed with an abundance of natural resources but yet we seem to be on a slow-moving poverty-reduction train. Available data by the World Bank as of 2019 indicate that 48 percent of our population live in poverty.
“It is therefore obvious that we need stronger and more vigorous poverty-reduction strategies to combat this phenomenon. I found Azruddin Mohamed’s vision truly inspiring after reviewing the manifesto of the We Invest in Nationhood Party which outlines some of these strategies.”
Despite several criticisms, WIN is yet to present a manifesto or policy position to the public and face the press at an official press conference.
Nazar Mohamed, his son Azruddin and their businesses, namely Mohamed’s Enterprise, Hadi’s World and Team Mohamed’s Racing, on June 11 2024, were sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which oversees sanctions against individuals and entities tied to illicit activities and hostile foreign governments.
In a June 2024 statement, the OFAC stated, “Azruddin and Mohamed’s Enterprise evaded Guyana’s tax on gold exports, and defrauded the Guyanese government of tax revenues by under-declaring their gold exports to Guyanese authorities. Between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise omitted more than 10 thousand kilogrammes of gold from import-and-export declarations, and avoided paying more than US$50 million in duty taxes to the Government of Guyana.”