Shameful demand by racist organizations for recall of global award to Pres Ali

Dear Editor,
The Ghanaian people are celebrating a great Guyanese son for the transformational leadership he has shown for Guyana, and as a voice for the developing countries. President Irfaan Ali carries on the tradition of PPP presidents being globally recognized for their leadership on the global social justice agenda.
The Ghanian-headquartered African Prosperity Network (APN) has awarded its 2024 Global Africa Leadership Award to President Irfaan Ali. The vast majority of Guyanese have greeted the news of the award with pride. But, inevitably, there will be dissidents, even if the dissidents are a small group of bitter Guyanese, infected with the virus of racism.
Eleven organizations that claim to represent Afro-Guyanese have demanded that APN withdraw the award they have honoured President Ali with. Those who oppose the award to President Ali include PNC leaders Hamilton Green and Vincent Alexander. They accused the APN of trying to curry-favour the President in the hope of gaining business benefits. Alexander further insulted the APN by referring to them as “some aliens from Ghana”. Such is their bitterness that Alexander even blamed the Ghanaians for slavery, insisting that ancestors in that country sold their countrymen into slavery. The dissidents’ shame knows no bounds.
Any time an Afro-Guyanese dared to show their independence, the organizations opposing the award to President Ali have deemed them “house slaves” and “soup drinkers”. The dissidents now extend the same characterization to the Ghanaian President and his people, and to the entire APN. For decades, these people have huffed and puffed about racial discrimination by the PPP, always without an iota of evidence. More and more, their supporters are not just tired of the baseless and false allegations, they are now convinced that the PNC and its cohorts in organizations such as those demanding the recall of the Global Leadership Award are false prophets. Moreover, many Afro-Guyanese who loyally voted for the PNC before are horrified and insulted that these charlatans take them for fools.
All eleven organizations claim to speak for Afro-Guyanese, even though there is evidence that none of them speak for more than a handful of people. They claim ownership of every Afro-Guyanese, and will not tolerate any Afro-Guyanese not bending down in absolute fealty. But these barefaced people now essentially deem the Ghanaian people and the APN as house slaves and soup drinkers.
For these reprehensible organizations, it is a betrayal that the APN would honour an Indo-Guyanese. It is from this prism that they do not object to subsidies which have rightfully been granted to the citizens living in Linden and Kwakwani for electricity, but they object to subsidies given to GUYSUCO. Linden and Kwakwani are mostly populated by Afro-Guyanese, while GUYSUCO workers are mostly Indo-Guyeanese.
While Hammie Green, Vincent Alexander, and the eleven organizations demanding recall of the APN Award to President Ali are recklessly promoting division among our people, they are checkmated by their own supporters, who reject their call. Just like their supporters rejected the PNC-sponsored mysterious form of voodoo mathematics that 32 is more than 33 during Election 2020, those same supporters reject the PNC’s efforts to racialize ONE GUYANA.
The dissidents cannot erase the despicable history of the PNC in Guyana, and the racist agenda of many of the organizations they represent. It is not yet even two weeks since the Leader of the Opposition stated publicly that if given an opportunity to govern Guyana again, which he claimed will be soon, he would ensure that the PNC-led Government fire all the PPP supporters. When the PNC and its leaders speak about PPP supporters, it is code word for Indo-Guyanese. He claimed that the David Granger-led PNC made a mistake by not firing more of the PPP supporters between 2015 and 2020, even though thousands of PPP supporters, mainly Indo-Guyanese, were fired or forced to resign, or demoted during the terrible years of 2015 and 2020.
But Aubrey Norton is not the first to promise mass discrimination targeting PPP supporters. Please recall that in November 2018, after a massive defeat at the LGE 2018, Volda Lawrence had again stated publicly that she only had PNC friends and that the PNC must only employ PNC people.
These demands by senior leaders of the PNC are not concoction of wicked opponents. Lawrence was caught on camera talking to a party group. In the case of Aubrey Norton, he was addressing a public meeting. The PNC’s policy has always been mass discrimination. When they closed sugar estates between 2016 and 2018, they targeted mainly Indo-Guyanese they saw as PPP supporters, although they ended up also hurting some Afro-Guyanese. The Afro-Guyanese that were affected by the malicious action targeting Indo-Guyanese were collateral damage in the books of PNC. One of the then Vice Presidents, Khemraj Ramjattan, admitted in Parliament that the action was directed at PPP supporters.
But they also fired more than 2,000 Amerindian CSOs (Community Service Officers).
Even though the PNC has consistently accused the PPP of discrimination, they depend entirely on hearsay anecdotal arguments. They claimed that Afro-Guyanese who were Permanent Secretaries (PSs) were fired by the Ali Government after he was sworn-in on August 2, 2020. In 2015, the contracts of PSs were terminated by the PNC-led Government, with all but one of them replaced. When President Ali’s Government took over in 2020, several PSs were replaced by qualified Guyanese that reflect roughly the diversity of Guyana. While the PSs in the PNC-led APNU/AFC were almost exclusively Afro-Guyanese, the new PS class today, slightly majority Afro-Guyanese, is broadly reflecting Guyana’s ethnic diversity.
While most of the scholarships granted by the PNC-led APNU/AFC Government to students during 2015 and 2020 were Afro-Guyanese and family and friends and even ministers, the more than 22,000 Guyanese awarded scholarships since August 2, 2020 reflect Guyana’s diversity. These are the facts, not some anecdotal story. It is why even organizations that are inclined to support the PNC are unable to publicly support the bogus claim of discrimination.
President Ali has visited every region, every sub-region in Guyana. He has visited communities that have never been visited by a president before. Whether communities have traditionally voted for the PPP or for the PNC, President Ali has visited, some more than once. In some communities, PNC-led activists have tried to intimidate people, but whether it is in Linden or Mocha or Hopetown, people invite and swarm President Ali. It is no accident that communities that once voted almost 100% with the PNC are now calling President Ali their “Comrade President”. It is why more than 70% of the seats in LGE 2023 were won by the PPP.
President Ali’s Government has invested everywhere. In five years under APNU/AFC, the PNC-led coalition built 29 streets, and virtually all in communities which represented their strongholds, communities which were largely majority Afro-Guyanese, in Region 5.
In just 2023 alone, President Ali’s Government has built 169 streets in the same region. In Region 10, a fortress for the PNC, a region that has been loyal to the PNC, and in which Afro-Guyanese dominate, President Ali’s Government in 2024 is providing $5B to continue the electricity subsidy for the residents of Linden and Kwakwani.
The PNC-led APNU/AFC Government had promised in Election 2015 to construct a new Wismar Bridge. For five years, between 2015 and 2020, they vacillated, and only announced the construction of a three-lane bridge. But even that silly talk never materialised. It is President Ali’s Government that has started the construction of a four-lane Wismar Bridge. They closed a call center that provided jobs, and today President Ali’s Government has brought back those jobs. Linden is undergoing an economic rebirth, courtesy of the PPP Government, following the PNC-instigated economic stagnation.
More Afro-Guyanese, as well as more Guyanese overall, are today benefiting from small business loans, scholarships, support for their children, support to meet catastrophic payments for illnesses such as kidney diseases through the dialysis subsidy program which grants $600,000 annually and which pays for all tests and medicines, bringing the subsidy to more than $1M annually. Every child, no matter what race or religion, or where they live or who their family voted for, more than 204,000 children in school, will receive $45,000 in 2024, a grant that was ruthlessly taken away from them by the PNC-led coalition in 2015.
Just in 2021, more Afro-Guyanese got house lots from President Ali’s Government than they did between 2015 and 2020.
President Ali’s award in Africa is an award also for Guyana. ONE GUYANA is here to stay. The unity of 1953 was no mirage, but the dream was temporarily distracted. President Ali has relit the flame, and ONE GUYANA is our compass as we embrace UNITY in DIVERSITY.
Congratulations, President Mohamed Irfaan Ali, our beloved President!

Sincerely,
Dr Leslie Ramsammy