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Vice President (VP) Bharat Jagdeo at his Thursday, September 14, 2023, press conference waded into issues of victimization and marginalization of Afro-Guyanese, which he says are being peddled by the Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Aubrey Norton, Caribbean-Guyana Institute for Democracy President Rickford Burke, and Attorney at Law Nigel Hughes.
Attorney Nigel Hughes of the ‘Hughes, Fields and Stoby’ law firm recently put out some information on his Social Media Facebook Page that suggests the narrative complained about by the VP may have veracity. The VP did not directly refute the data posted by the respected Attorney.
Instead, he sidestepped the issues raised by Hughes and chose to speak about programs being started, and about roads being undertaken by the government. It hints at a lack of forthrightness that the Vice President, in a press conference, chose not to directly address the data cited by the respected Attorney.
Lawyer Nigel Hughes cited the following figures in his Facebook post, in which he wrote, “It’s in the disaggregated data.”
“Perhaps the time has come for the use of disaggregated data to assess national development,” Hughes stated in his post.
VP Jagdeo says, “At least some villages are getting some roads here that are Afro-Guyanese and mix villages. The issue is that we don’t do the ethnic count when we decide on capital works. We have made it clear we’re fixing all the roads, community roads in the entire country, particularly along the coast. It’s just a matter of time when we get to every community.”
The accusations of ‘victimization and marginalization of Afro-Guyanese’ have bedeviled the Ali-Jagdeo regime. The Vice President said President Irfaan Ali’s current three-day trip to Washington will see him “meeting with members of the Executive, and senior members of the Biden administration… several congressmen including the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.”
“He’ll be meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. And I believe that Hakeem Jeffries will be there also.” The VP said this is towards, “advancing an understanding of what’s happening here in Guyana.”