Unpatriotic machinations of the Opposition will continue to fail

Dear Editor,
Adam Harris, who served as a leading figure within the esteemed Fourth Estate of Guyana for decades; holding leadership roles in the Guyana Press Association and serving as editor-in-chief of the state paper Guyana Chronicle under the PNC regime, and later in the same role at Kaieteur News, has published another article with a most objectionable headline, “It is now clear that the PPP government of Guyana wants to destroy black people.”
While being highly sensational, misplaced and irresponsible, the headline is very characteristic of the Harris many of us know to be the holder of a PNC party card since the days of the dictator Forbes Burnham.
Not that there is anything wrong with him holding bona fide membership in a political party. He could’ve instead joined the People’s Progressive Party, if he wanted to. Where the problem lies with his credibility is that he is now working full-time for his party — something he should have done all along as a matter of journalistic ethics, basic professionalism, and the sacred ethos governing the Fourth Estate; instead of his years of interloping and masquerading.
Given the ethnic polarisation Adam’s party has wrought on this nation, he was unfortunately able to call himself a journalist, a leading one to boot, and get away with spewing similar politically motivated and driven propaganda for years.
One most memorable case in point is his appearance with me and several of his senior colleagues on a ‘live’ panel discussion in observance of World Press Freedom Day while he served as editor-in-chief at Kaieteur News several years ago. When pressed by the moderator to account for the outlandish nature of many of the news stories with screaming headlines in that paper, he boldly declared that they creatively concoct information, their alternative facts, when Government officials are less than forthcoming on important issues.
That declaration, which should have been considered blasphemous to the media fraternity and should’ve perhaps drawn sanctions from the Press Association, simply fell like water on a duck’s back without any challenge or reprimand whatsoever from his peers across the private media community.
Now, years on since his retirement, and in the true role he was playing all along, Harris continues unabated to spew incendiary garbage disguised as news stories. The headline captioned above presumable speaks only to the first issue he raises in the article, the dramatic imbroglio over the last-resort removal of a few squatters from the commercially zoned shoulders of the Heroes Highway.
The facts, as Harris very well knows, show that the Government engaged affected squatters in an extensive consultative process leading to fair compensation for properties and crops, allocation of land, relocation and construction assistance, and the issuance of titles.
For clarity, and for the benefit of those readers confused by Harris’s attempts to trade in his party’s race-hate communication tactics, a total of thirty-five (35) persons were affected at Mocha Arcadia, where a new highway was being constructed to link the Demerara East Coast with the Demerara West Bank. Each of the affected persons who were squatting in the path of the highway — specifically along the lands that would envelop the highway, which were designated as part of a new commercial corridor — was offered compensatory payment commensurate with the estimated market value of their property, totalling $250,050,000 among them, and varying additional sums for crops totalling $5,103,009 among the beneficiaries who had viable crops. Assigned lots were valued between $300,000 (size 48 x 84) and $1.2 million (size 46 x 100).
By midway through the consultative process, twenty (20) persons readily accepted what they agreed were fair offers and assistance, and were relocated from the area in question without issue.
At time of the demolition exercise of the remaining 15 persons, eight of them had also accepted the relocation package and were at varying stages of moving to their newly assigned house lots. However, seven (7) remained defiantly opposed and aggressively resistant, at the behest of the PNC leadership who had successfully coerced them to take the sacrificial stance as ethnic pawns for the race-hate political campaign of the party.
These facts are contained in the chronological timeline dossier of events, with full details of all engagements and measures the Government exercised with the squatters, and are publicly available on the website of the Ministry of Housing and Water for anyone to peruse.
The ministry has now started moving to allocate, along the highway’s economic shoulders, commercial plots to local investors, Guyanese from the diaspora, and others whose expressions of interest are part of an extensive backlog in the ministry’s system. Meanwhile, Harris and the band of political communicators and disinformation peddlers aligned to Congress Place and the other halls of the opposition marauders continue to spew their race hate hogwash as part of their early general elections campaign tactics.
Like the settled Mocha Arcadia issue, and that aside, nothing else among the many anecdotal matters raised in Harris’s article offers a scintilla of evidence or fact to support the dubious headline. But try as he will, along with the rest of the cool-aid race-baiting gang of the opposition, Guyanese at home and abroad, the regional and international communities of democratic nations, and other vested stakeholders can see a transparent, multi-pronged ‘One Guyana’ citizens empowerment agenda being executed by the Irfaan Ali- led government, as per our manifesto promises.
Starting with the Cabinet, seven of the most powerful portfolios and ministries are held by Guyanese of African descent: the Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, Minister of Public Affairs, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Public Works, Minister of Labour, and Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce. More than half of the more than 35,000 house lots allocated since 2020 and the GOAL scholarships are being enjoyed by Guyanese of African descent. The Ministry of labour, through its agency, the Board of Industrial Training, has been executing equitable skills training for thousands of Guyanese youths across the country. The mortgage interest rate reductions and raised loan ceilings are for the benefit of all Guyanese. The myriad of tax reductions, school meals, eye testing vouchers, and school-based cash grants are benefitting all eligible Guyanese children who are still in school. Entrepreneurial and economic opportunities have been opening up to all who can tap in for the establishment of businesses, and wide-ranging employment opportunities are available to all qualified citizens; while public infrastructure and services’ contracts are more widely open across ethnic groups than at any time before in Guyana’s independent history, nationally, regionally and at the community levels.
So, the words in Harris’s whistle-blowing headlines are exactly what they are, another naked and vulgar attempt by an opposition propagandist to sow seeds of ethnic division and discord among a nation otherwise engrossed in nation-building, empowerment pursuits, inter-generational wealth creation, and national sustainable unity.
Adam Harris et al must realize sooner rather than later that these unpatriotic machinations of theirs in the opposition would continue to fail, while the hearts and minds of the vast majority of Guyanese would continue the noble quests that our forefathers and the architects of our independence envisioned for our beloved Guyana.

Sincerely,
Kwame McCoy M.P.
Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister