Vice President and General Secretary, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the Alliance For Change (AFC), for its ‘pathological hatred’ for the People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government, saying that the Nigel Hughes-led party would rather partner with the ‘devil’ than acknowledge the progress Guyana has made under the PPP/C’s leadership.
He made these remarks while speaking about this and other topical issues during an engagement with members of the media at Freedom House, the party’s headquarters on Robb Street, Georgetown.
Referencing a recent press conference held by the AFC, Dr Jagdeo said there is a clear indication of a ‘behind-the-scenes’ collaboration between the AFC and United States-sanctioned businessman, Azrrudin Mohamed. Mohamed is the We Invest In Nationhood’s presidential candidate, a newly formed political party contesting the upcoming general and regional elections.
According to the general secretary, “They don’t mind collaborating with the devil. They don’t mind collaborating with an individual who is sanctioned by the United States of America and who [poses] a serious threat to our country, our future, our wellbeing, our jobs [and] everything else.”
He contended that the opposition’s obsessed hatred for the PPP/C runs so deep, it overrides the country and people’s well-being.
Despite losing two years of its term to the COVID-19 pandemic, Guyana has made significant strides in improving healthcare, education, infrastructure, and other social initiatives, including leading the Caribbean region in advancing food security.
But the AFC “will ignore every progress our country has made. We can go back to the past,..we can lose jobs, but anyone but the PPP in the office,” he said.
“They don’t care about the people. They have an obsession with hatred of the PPP,” he further pointed out.
With this being said, Dr Jagdeo warned supporters to be wary of this behind-the-scenes collaboration, whose main goal is to have a minority government in Parliament.
On June 11, 2024, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions on one of Guyana’s wealthiest families, Nazar Mohamed (Nazar) and his son, Azruddin Mohamed, their company, Mohamed’s Enterprise, and a Guyanese government official, Mae Thomas, for their roles in public corruption.
Based on reports, Azruddin and Mohamed’s Enterprise evaded Guyana’s tax on gold exports and defrauded the Guyanese government of tax revenues by under-declaring their gold exports to Guyanese authorities.
Between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise omitted more than 10,000 kilograms of gold from import and export declarations and avoided paying more than $50 million in duty taxes to the Guyana Government.
