Minister McCoy rubbishes Olive Sampson’s claims of affiliation to IDPADA-G

Dear Editor,
Olive Cannings Sampson, Chief Executive Officer of the now disgraced and virtually defunct International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G), has written to newspaper editors to brazenly assert exclusivity for the ‘sister’ political organization of IDPADA-G, the African Cultural & Development Association (ACDA), regarding emancipation celebrations, and to continue attempting to fraudulently arrogate to herself and IDPADA-G the right to pronounce and make national representation for and on behalf of Guyanese of African descent.
It is therefore now more than apparent that the management of this organisation has cocooned itself into a shameless rhetorical state of denial about its fall from grace, and, consequentially, its revoked locus standi to continue meaningful representation of Guyanese of African descent.
Guyanese at home and abroad bore witness to the shocking revelations, a few years ago, of IDPADA-G’s self-inflicted unravelling of its incestuous mismanagement and misappropriation of public funds amounting to more than a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money at the expense of dozens of community-based organisations which were genuinely positioned to facilitate the empowerment of their various communities through what should have been equitable sharing of those public funds.
IDPADA-G hopes Guyanese would forget the embarrassing spectacle of learning how a small cabal of greedy and entitled individuals at the helm of the organization siphoned the members’ money into a private company structured with vulgar emoluments and other benefits swirling only in that circle of Afro-demigods, and allowing only for crumbs and trickles to fall slavishly at the feet of member groups; often, none at all.
Those criminal revelations, all of Guyana would recall, resulted in a rebellious exodus of the vast majority of member groups from the wretched, corrupt halls of Mama IDPADA-G; demanding instead that their Government engage them directly and help revive their unshakable commitment to genuine representation of their respective constituent communities across the country. Their message was loud and unambiguous: for the Government to periodically release the funds committed for the extended International Decade directly among them, to finally allow for transparent and credible adumbration of the cause for upliftment and empowerment beyond what is embodied in the Government’s national transformational agenda.
How ironic and utterly disrespectful is it therefore that, having unshackled themselves from the corrupt tyranny of Cannings Sampson and Alexander et al, the new Association of People of African Descent (APAD) is being subjected to continuous public lynching by IDPADA-G; this time around for where, when, and how it chooses to carry out the wishes of its members for the celebration of emancipation 2024.
As if it previously were not clear enough, allow me to reiterate the Government’s position concerning the deployment of public funds and support for the vision of the United Nations General Assembly regarding the deserving extension of the ‘Decade of People of African Descent’; recognition and unwavering support will flow unabated to those organisations genuinely engaged in representing Guyanese of African Descent, and whose ethos is NOT self-serving, incestuous, and corrupt.
Consequently, the Government’s support for observances and celebrations of the 186th emancipation in Guyana is assured for the dozens of community-based organisations that have boldly and judiciously unshackled themselves from the disgraced IDPADA-G.

Sincerely,
Honourable Kwame McCoy, MP
Minister for Information and Public Affairs, Office of the Prime Minister