Govt must come clean on ‘drug dealing’ financers – Opposition Leader

With more of its supporters and financers being implicated in drug related scandals and activities, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo is calling on the Administration to come clean on its campaign finances and financers.
Jagdeo was at the time making reference to Lear Goring, the recently hired and fired Guyana Water Inc (GWI) Debt Recovery Manager, and former Health Minister, Dr Noel Blackman.
The Opposition Leader has since called on the coalition A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government, to say how much ‘drug money,’ if any, went into its campaign.
Jagdeo made the pronouncement on Wednesday, as he addressed members of the local media corps at his party’s Freedom House headquarters.
He suggested that had it been discovered that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) had in fact employed someone convicted of drug trafficking, “the newspapers would go wild.”
According to Jagdeo, while Goring has been fired since the recent exposé, the Administration still needs to clear the air on whether any of the drug dealings that Dr Blackman has been found guilty of made its way into the APNU/AFC campaign.
Additionally, Goring was found guilty on two occasions of drug trafficking and had been deported twice from the United States of America.
The Opposition Leader recalled that Dr Blackman was in fact tipped to replace the Chairman at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GHPC), but had been hauled off by agents of the plane by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).
Dr Blackman was on his way back to Guyana to assume his post at the GPHC, before being nabbed and convicted of drug trafficking in the US.
He has since copped a plea bargain with US authorities in order to face a reduced sentence. Jagdeo said when similar occurrences obtained during his time in office, each of the guilty parties were accused of being close to the Administration. “Everybody used to be Jagdeo friend, whether I knew the people or not.”
He drew reference too, to reports that his Administration, while in office, had granted a forestry concession to convicted drug trafficker, Roger Khan, but this turned out to be untrue.
Jagdeo said when the investigations were carried out, it was found that the inaccurate information had been passed onto the US Government by members of APNU.
On the matter of the former Health Minister being convicted of drug offences in the US, Jagdeo said, “There are no secrets about this that Mr Blackman was a staunch supporter of APNU… he is now being convicted for drug dealing in the United States of America.”
According to Jagdeo, former Health Minister, Dr Blackman was central to the APNU’s election campaign and “was brought back by this Government to chair the GPHC, he was on his way back to take up that post in Guyana, he was central in the campaign in 2015, as he was in previous campaigns.”
The President has since publicly asked “was some of the (drugs) money spent and how much.”
These questions, he said, should be posed to the APNU General Secretary, Minister of State Joseph Harmon, “if they received a donation (from Dr Blackman) and how much.”
According to Jagdeo, had it been the PPP/C, “there would be an automatic assumption that he funded our whole campaign” adding that, “the same standards don’t hold for the other two parties.”