There is a growing number of incredible young women professionals who are playing a vital and leading role in defining the new, exciting Guyana. Within the last two weeks, the first ever women-only surgical team began their work at the GPHC. It is an incredible moment for our country. We congratulate the young Guyanese women, mostly from ordinary families, who represent Guyana’s first ever all-women surgical team. This is also the first ever in Caricom, and might even be among the very first in the world.
But, in particular, recognition is given to one particular young woman professional. She is blazing a new path for the Guyana Learning Channel (GLC), leading the GLC for just over two years now, with distinction. This young woman is an example of how the new Guyana is being driven by the increasing number of young women professionals, who are paving pathways for both young women and men to play roles in the development path of our country. Young Anisa Mohamed is one of those young professional women.
In Budget 2023 debate, Opposition MPs could not present a cogent counter to the Government’s proposals in Budget 2023. Not that we expected them to, in any case. Still, we expected that they would not descend into their usual insults and demonisation of people. But then we might have expected too much. One of the senior MPs from the Opposition, a former senior minister in the disastrous APNU/AFC Government, Cathy Hughes, in fact simply went too far. Demonising persons – especially young professionals, and particularly young women professionals – must be unequivocally rejected by all decent Guyanese. We just cannot allow the baseless attacks on young professionals by giving persons who are paid as MPs a pass for insulting young professionals, especially when these professionals are not present to defend themselves.
Ms. Hughes decided to bring up in Parliament the name of Anisa Mohamed, who has nothing to do with Budget 2023. This is a young woman professional who has committed her life to work for her country, who has not done anything to wrong people like Cathy Hughes. Her only “fault” is she chose to work with the PPP Government. In no way the name of Anisa Mohamed belonged in the debate. But for Ms. Hughes, Anisha Mohamed has no right to work with the Government she supports. Because she worked alongside the PPP before the elections, for Ms. Hughes, that alone was reason she was not eligible for any job. It is, of course, in the DNA of the political party Ms. Hughes associates with and defends, even as that party brazenly tried to steal an entire election in the plain view of the whole world.
Ms. Hughes’s attack was not just a brazen attack, it was cowardly and despicable. Ms. Hughes knows nothing about Anisa Mohamed. All she knows is that Ms. Mohamed was one of thousands of young people who decided they had had enough of David Granger and APNU/AFC (PNC), including the likes of Cathy Hughes. In the absence of any credible reason for attacking Budget 2023, Ms. Hughes decided to focus her Budget 2023 debate presentation on attacking young Guyanese women. Anisha was one of the young women she odiously attacked.
With nothing of substance to criticise Budget 2023, Ms. Hughes decided she would insult and deride Ms. Mohamed by insinuating that the only reason she got the job as head of the GLC was that she was a relative of Minister Priya Manickchand. There is no reason or clue for anyone to come to a conclusion that the only reason Ms. Mohamed got her job at the GLC is because she is related to Minister Priya Manickchand. Nothing exists that would make anyone believe that there is any blood relationship between Minister Manickchand and Ms. Mohamed. It was a sheer wicked invention. There is an “l” word that editors tell us not to use. The Speaker of the National Assembly has banned its use in Parliament, but I have no apologies to make for saying it bluntly – the MP who made the remarks in Parliament deliberately lied.
Ms. Mohamed is an example of the young generation of women who have stepped forward to play a role in the development of Guyana. I have seen her commitment and dedication to what she does, including a remarkable stint so far at the GLC. I know for sure that her accomplishments at the GLC in every way whatsoever far exceed the total accomplishments of those who ran the GLC under the APNU/AFC tenure. The GLC reaches thousands more today than it reached in August 2020. In fact, there is no evidence that the reach improved between 2015 and 2020. But the content of the Guyana Learning Channel has been revolutionised since August 2020.
In retrospect, I hope Ms. Hughes has the decency to recognise that her attack was unwarranted, and that she needs to apologise. Ms. Hughes has allowed the DNA of the PNC to contaminate her own family’s sterling DNA. It is time that she takes a step back and recognise that, in Ms. Anisa Mohamed, Guyana has a role model for young women to lead Guyana into a new era; an era of progress and prosperity; an era wherein Guyana is the model for other countries. No entity with the likes of an Anisa Mohamed would go wrong. We are privileged we have the likes of Ms. Mohamed carrying our flag.
