Mash 2025 was a glorious celebration of Guyana’s 55th Republic anniversary. Guyanese of all ethnicities came out to celebrate, united under the ONE GUYANA banner. In the meanwhile, over the next two weeks, distribution centres across Guyana are ensuring that every Guyanese 18 years old and above receive their $100,000 cash grant, no matter their ethnicity, religion, or which political party they might be affiliated to.
On Guyana’s Republic Day, the Chief-of-Staff of the GDF announced promotions for 41 officers, the vast majority of whom were Afro-Guyanese. This announcement, juxtaposed with a presentation made in Geneva by Vincent Alexander on behalf of IDPADA-G (International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly – Guyana), represents contrasting tales of the same country.
Alexander’s story in Geneva is that Guyana is an “apartheid” country, with massive discrimination against Afro-Guyanese. Of the officers that were promoted, only one officer was of Indo-Guyanese origin — not shocking, because the vast majority of the members of the GDF are Afro-Guyanese.
The Guyana Police Force is similarly dominated by officers who are Afro-Guyanese. The Public Service is also dominated by Afro-Guyanese, 50% of the Permanent Secretaries, the most senior public servants, are Afro-Guyanese, and more than 33% of Government Ministers are Afro-Guyanese.
The PPP has been in Government for 25 of the last 30 years. If the PPP Government has been practising “apartheid” policies, “discriminating” against Afro-Guyanese, how come the Government bureaucracy – Public Service, Police, Fire Service, Prison Officers, Defence Force – is still strongly dominated by Afro-Guyanese? In the Government’s communication architecture – NCN TV, NCN Radio and the Guyana Chronicle – the majority of reporters and staff are Afro-Guyanese. The vast majority of nurses are Afro-Guyanese. The ethnic make-up of doctors, teachers, judges and magistrates in Guyana almost reflects the ethnic make-up of the population. There have never ever been more Afro-Guyanese contractors, small-business owners, vehicle owners or home-owners.
Alexander never offered — nor could he have presented — any evidence for his allegation of “massive discrimination” and “apartheid”. He ignored that in a total population where Afro-Guyanese make up about 30%, more than 50% of the people allocated house lots, and more than 40% of the almost 30,000 scholarships that have been awarded since 2020, are Afro-Guyanese. With over 60,000 new jobs since 2020, there is no evidence that any ethnic group is denied employment.
Alexander alleged, without any evidence, that police officers have been denied promotion because promotion is not merit-based, but directed via presidential instructions. He alleged that senior police officers are being prosecuted to deny these qualified police officers their promotion. Only one senior officer and his wife have been charged with corruption and various financial crimes, and that happened after he was promoted to Assistant Police Commissioner. How one officer has become many officers is simply unfathomable.
Alexander is guilty of misinformation and baldfaced lies.
Alexander alleged that Afro-Guyanese have had their properties destroyed and lands taken away. He was clearly referring to the residents who had squatted in Mocha-Arcadia on land which is located where a highway was planned. He failed to tell the meeting that Government had been giving notice to the squatters since 2008 that they should not build anything there. Once the PPP came back into government in 2020 and the highway plan was being implemented, the residents were offered transported land not far away and compensation way above the appraised value of any property they had on the land they were squatting on. While the majority of the residents complied and accepted the generous offer made by the Government, seven residents, under pressure from Alexander’s party, refused the offer. They wanted prime land they chose and compensation amounting to US$1 million.
The Chief Justice, in a ruling, concluded that the residents had no right to the land, and were wrong not to negotiate with the Government. Alexander’s party has since abandoned the residents. It is the President who has offered the residents help.
Evidence shows that it is Alexander’s party that has denied Afro-Guyanese land-ownership. Between 2015 and 2020, not one ordinary Afro-Guyanese got land for housing or for agriculture or any other business. They gave land to themselves – ministers and high-level officials — thousands of acres of land. In fact, among those who got lands is a leader of one of the opposition parties today, the former Chief Elections Officer and the former Regional Elections Officer of Region 4, both of whom are charged with elections-related crimes.
But the PNC’s discrimination in distribution of lands is old habit. During the PNC dictatorship pre-1992, a coop was awarded lease for all the agriculture land aback Seafield, West Coast Berbice. By 2012, the Coop had only three members. They rented the land to people outside of Seafield, and benefitted from millions of dollars. Worse, the Coop did not pay their lease rates.
The PPP government, in 2014, responding to the pleas of Seafield residents, all Afro-Guyanese and all loyal PNC supporters, reallocated the land to every family in Seafield. The PNC lawyers fought against this reallocation. When they got into government in 2015, the PNC rescinded the lease of these ordinary Afro-Guyanese and awarded the land again to the few members of the coop. It was PPP lawyers that approached the court in 2016 on behalf of the residents of Seafield. The court ruled in favour of the citizens. But Alexander’s party refused to re-issue the lease to the residents. It was the PPP government in 2020 that re-issued the leases.
These are some examples of the total fabrications and misrepresentations that Alexander traveled all the way from Georgetown to Geneva to make.
More misrepresentations and fabrications will be addressed in another communication. Alexander’s propaganda is shameful and is a total disgrace. It is why so many Afro-Guyanese are aligning with the PPP, abandoning the PNC in droves and standing as ONE GUYANA.
