(DemeraraWaves Online) – The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) on Monday assured that it was not about to pull out of the coalition with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) despite some internal pressure to do so, but vowed that it would no longer allow itself to be sidelined in key policy-making.
WPA executive member, Dr. David Hinds called on the government to allow his party to “meaningfully engage” in shaping policy and vision for Guyana.
“We do not want to go there to the point of disengage. We are firmly committed to making this government work but because we have been in the trenches for forty odd years trying to bring about change in this country and we feel that the present government has a unique opportunity to bring about some semblance of change in this country so we have worked hard to put this government in power and we do not want to bring this government down.”
WPA Executive Member, Tacuma Ogunseye said his party would decide its future political relations with government, APNU, wider coalition and Guyana after that body holds its first meeting in two years on July 22, 2017. “That meeting could have a very serious impact on the future relations between the WPA and our partners so for us this a very important meeting and we are going out of our way to handle this delicately and with caution.”
Ogunseye said the WPA’s role was diminished. “We in the WPA believe that when we look at the way in which the relationships unfold in the APNU that the WPA was effectively sidelined. There is no question about that. We may argue about why and so but we feel that the end result, any objective examination we will be forced to come to that conclusion.”
Hinds noted that some party members strongly “feel that we should disengage with the government immediately.” “There is a range of opinion from those who are open to continue to work with the government to those who feel that we have been so disrespected that we should get out of the government so we have to manage all of those views inside of the party,” he said.
The party made public its concerns due to no “active engagement” before President David Granger decided to shift Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine from the post of Minister of Education to the newly-created Minister of the Public Service.
Saying that the WPA comes out of a “radical”political tradition of the 1970s in which there is a voice in society that critiques government and questions power while being part of power. Despite the fact that the WPA, on its own, has barely mustered one seat in the National Assembly in past general elections, Hinds said politics should not be only about the number of votes won at a general election. “There is a view in this country that is held by many of the leaders that what you bring to the table is votes and if you don’t bring votes, you are not important and we would like to sincerely and respectfully disagree with that view.
We know that voting in this country has a lot to do with ethnic sentiments and we have never been an ethnic party in that regard but we would like to believe that at the level of shaping of public opinion… at the level of ideas… that we have contributed immensely to this country in terms of the discussion of ideas and the shaping of ideas and so, therefore, we bring something tangible to the coalition,” he said.
He said although the WPA played an important role in helping to write the APNU+AFC manifesto and is eminently qualified to deal with sugar, oil economy and social cohesion, his party has been sidelined. “For the last two years, we have not been involved in shaping of policy and we feel the time has come for that to come to an end,” he said.
Hinds disclosed that his party had not been consulted after the May 11, 2015 general and regional elections about a place in the Cabinet, although that person would have been Dr. Roopnaraine. “We were not consulted and that is the crux of the matter here. It has been so for the last two years. WPA has been respectful of our partners and we have not taken matters like this to the public. We have tried over and over again to get our partners to meet and so we can iron out some of these matters,” Hinds said.
Asked why he wanted the WPA to be consulted now, Hinds said the party gave the government the benefit of the doubt that there was malice in failing to consult but “when it came down to the Roopnaraine thing, we thought that that was blatant and that the line had been crossed and we needed to speak out publicly.”
With that party hinting strongly that Roopnaraine’s new portfolio amounts to a demotion, even on the basis of budgetary allocation, executive members Hinds and Tabitah Sarabo-Halley shied away from saying whether they were available for ministerial office.” Until we hear from the President a description of the ministry and we could make a real rational judgement, I would want to hold on that (assessment) but I will argue that because the Education Ministry was such a substantive ministry – it probably had the highest spending allotment in the budget, it is hard to see how the other ministry could compare with that but we would rather to wait until we understand the exact role of the ministry before we make a real assessment,” Ogunseye added.
Though Roopnaraine remains a senior minister in the Ministry of the Presidency’s Department of the Public Service, the WPA plans to raise the issue of having a separate ministry when APNU’s executive meets on July 22, 2017 for the first time in two years.
Dr. Hinds labelled as “insensitive” the decision to announce Dr. Roopnaraine departure from the Education Ministry on June 13, 2017 – the death anniversary of Dr. Walter Rodney who was assassinated in 1980 in a walkie-talkie bomb-blast at the height of a civil rebellion against the then People’s National Congress-led dictatorship.
“To announce the reassignment of a WPA minister on that day was extremely insensitive and we in the WPA believe that this has to do with something larger than what happened on that day. We feel generally in this country that those who control power have not been respectful of Walter Rodney’s memories and contributions to this country,” said Hinds.
President Granger’s PNC-Reform is the largest, most dominant and influential party in the APNU and the APNU+Alliance For Change-led administration. Despite partisan feelings, Hinds said “those in power”should respect Rodney – “easily the most famous”Guyanese, Caribbean, African and Third World scholar and political activist of the late 20th century.”
Hinds said the WPA did not raise that “contentious” issue in a meeting with the President last week Saturday but plans to do in next month’s meeting. “We are firm in our belief that Walter Rodney was assassinated because of his political activity and we hold the government and State of that time responsibility for Walter Rodney’s assassination. We are very clear about that!
But we believe that 38 years on, that if we are to truly honour Walter Rodney who was a patriot, who was concerned about the direction of this country, that we will not use his assassination as a barrier to bringing the country together but to use his memory, his works as a means of bringing the country together,” said Hinds, a one-time radical activist in the 1970s and 1980s.
Dr. Hinds said his party had not been involved or consulted in shaping the education sector, partly due to no APNU meetings. He said Dr. Roopnaraine was also given a free hand to manage the Ministry of Education.

Georgetown – Twenty-eight year old Ronella Tashanna Junor was Monday jailed for 36 months after pleading guilty to an embezzlement charge because her salary during the probationary period was insufficient.
Junor accepted the charge of embezzlement read to her before City Magistrate Judy Latchman which stated that between March on and June 16, 2017, being employed as a clerk at Midas Enterprise, she fraudulently embezzled the sum of GYD$219,900 taken into her possession under the name Midas Enterprise.
She told the magistrate that her probationary salary was not sufficient and she was in a hard place so she took the cash from her employer.
The business owner, Paul Giddings, told the court that this is not the first time in which Junor had stolen cash from the company and as such asked the court to hand down a harsh penalty for her actions.
The court was told that the defendant, who was employed as a receptionist, was entrusted to collect monies on behalf Midas Enterprise.
Giddings, over a period of time, checked the records and discovered that the GYD$219,900 were missing. Checks were made on the surveillance footage which showed the defendant taking monies out of the box.
A report was made to the police and under caution Junor admitted to taking the cash.

Georgetown – Mr. James Singh has been removed from the post of Head of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit, following a Commission of Inquiry into the detention and release of a suspected drugs-laden ship earlier this year.
Singh said on Friday afternoon that he was so informed, but he declined to give details or discuss the matter further.
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon said Friday that President David Granger, who ordered the probe, has given Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan “some clear guidance” on what has to be done including Singh’s removal.
“That would be one of the guidance,” when asked whether Granger has asked for the Head of CANU to be removed.
Singh’s contract expires in another three years and his now three-month long leave ends in July.
The Commission of Inquiry had also sought to determine the circumstances under which CANU received information, including the exact date and time of the receipt of such information, that an unnamed private maritime vessel , entered into, was detained and searched in the sea space of Guyana between 11th and 14th February, 2017.

Two days later, on February 16th, 2017 another vessel with four Guyanese aboard were intercepted by United States and Trinidad authorities in international waters with 4.2 tons of cocaine – the biggest haul in 20 years.
In addition to determining whether the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit had the authority to order the release of the vessel and whether such an order was lawful and/or justifiable in the circumstances, the probe sought to determine whether any “foreign power” had anything to do with the operation …the instructions issued to the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard, the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit and the role of any foreign law enforcement agencies in the conduct of the operation to intercept, detain and search said vessel.”
The commissioners were Retired Brigadier, Bruce Lovell; Retired Assistant Commissioner of Police, Winston Cosbert, and Ministry of the Presidency official, Christine Bailey.
Lovell had previously probed allegations against CANU by now convicted drug trafficker, Barry Dataram.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Ramotar Friday afternoon defended James Singh saying the former drugs czar had a very fruitful relationship with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
“I was one who had asked the DEA to set up an office here. Whenever I met with the officers of the DEA in Guyana and had conversations with them, they were always in very high praise of the work that Mr. James Singh was doing here in our country with CANU and how much that helped them in doing their work there in the United States and being able to put a lot of major drug people away and behind bars,” Ramotar said.

Georgetown – Steve Allicock , 35, was yesterday sentenced to 60 years in jail after a jury unanimously found him guilty of the murder of Wendell Tappin.
Trial judge, Justice Navindra Singh, ordered that time served on remand, be deducted after finding no mitigating circumstances to consider.
Prior to sentence, defence attorney Maxwell McKay said that his client has been a model prisoner with no previous brushes with the law. But Prosecutor Tuanna Hardy asked the judge to impose a sentence which would reflect the gravity of the act. She said that at only 23 years old, Tappin lost his life at the hands of the convict, who pierced his heart with a knife.
When given a chance to speak, the visibly shocked Allicock continued to maintain his innocence. The father of seven stressed that he was nowhere around at the time of the killing.He sais the testimony of Tappin’s father against him, was fabricated.
The convict’s father, Leonard Allicock, who was acquitted of the said charge back in 2014, loudly remonstrated as he left the court complex, voicing his discontent with the verdict. He, along with his brother, Randolph Allicock, were jointly charged with Tappin’s murder, but both had been cleared of the indictment.
The capital indictment against Steve Allicock, stated that on December 31, 2009, at Hill Street, Albouystown, Georgetown, he murdered Tappin, called ‘Keyco.’
Mc Kay had argued that his client was in Suriname at the time of the killing; the state, however, contended that Steve Allicock fled to Suriname, only after committing the offence.
In his testimony, father of the deceased, Dan Tappin, refuted the claims advanced by the defence. He had told the court that he was on the scene when the accused, who he has known for more than 20 years, stabbed his son.
Before his arraignment, Steve Allicock had eluded capture for over five years.
Tappin, 23, and a father of two, was fatally chopped about his body while on his way to collect a cell phone in Hill Street, Albouystown.
Pathologist Dr Vivekanand Brijmohan, had given the cause of death as shock and haemorrhage, and a stab wound to the heart.
Accounts are that two men confronted Tappin, with one holding him down while the other chopped him. Tappin was rushed to the Georgetown Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

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