The Opposition Peoples Progressive Party on Wednesday called out the David Granger-led A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) coalition for using public funds to produce and disseminate an utterly erroneous narrative of what transpired in relation to the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections to the US Government.
The party, in a strongly worded statement on Wednesday, said it is compelled to respond to a preposterous document titled “DOSSIER Guyana Elections 2020”, bearing the insignia of the APNU/AFC on its face. This dossier was prepared by a Michael Granger, and sent via email to Joseph Albertini, a principal of a US company called JJ&B LLC.
Michael Granger, according to documents filed with the US Department of Justice, is an investment advisor for the Government of Guyana, and was paid US$8000 for his services, which will be rendered part-time.
According to the PPP, the use of public funds to pay for the promotion of a party brief is not only in violation of the Procurement Act, but constitutes a fraud under the ordinary criminal laws of the country.
It noted that the retained US firm and its principals, who assisted in the preparation of the APNU/AFC Dossier, may be guilty of fraudulently misrepresenting to the US Government that their client is the Government of Guyana, when in fact it is a political party.
“This firm may now have not only implicated itself in a conspiracy to disseminate false information to US lawmakers, but also may be implicated in a criminal enterprise to misappropriate public funds”, the PPP has said.
According to the PPP, the document prepared by the company “is nothing but a tissue of lies, which descends to such levels as peddling and promoting ethnic, religious and racial hostilities…This is the dangerous extent to which these political tyrants are prepared to travel so that they can continue to squat in government.”
As such, the party sad it comprehensively rejects the diatribe, and informed that it is in the process of preparing a detailed response, “not because the dishonest Dossier is worthy of it, but only to set the public record straight.”
According to the PPP, all the accredited international and local observers (including the Organisation of America States (OAS), European Union (EU), the Commonwealth, the Carter Center, Caricom, Amcham, the local Private Sector Commission, and the Guyana Bar Association), the Diplomatic Community, the Governments of the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Caribbean Community and the United Nations – all issued reports and public statements “condemning the naked and vulgar attempts by the APNU+AFC, acting in collaboration with the Guyana Elections Commission, to declare false results for Region Four, the most populous of the ten electoral districts.”
The party noted, too, that several individual governments and international organisations have also publicly stated that any government sworn in on the basis of these results, which lack credibility, will not be recognized as a legitimate Government, and would face sanctions.
Additionally, the PPP drew reference to the fact that the Chief Justice of the country also delivered a written judgment in litigation filed on behalf of the PPP/C, declaring the tabulation of the said Region Four results as fraudulent and illegal, and directed that those results be tabulated in accordance with law.
The PPP is adamant that the world knows the uncomplicated truth about the rank fraud which permeated the declaration of the elections results for Region Four.
It further lamented that the Government is able to fork out thousands of US Dollars “to spread absolutely misleading information on behalf of the APNU/AFC, so that they can continue to hold on to power illegally and in defiance of the Constitution and every democratic principle known to the free world”—in face of combatting the COVID-19 disease.
Government, the party reminds, is continuously pleading a lack of resources to confront the deadly dilemma, yet the Ministry of the Presidency is able to fork out money to the US firm to do work on behalf of the party.
In an article published by the Washington Post on December 14, 2011, it was stated that the Obama Administration had allowed the Republic of Sudan to hire its first US lawyer in years, prompting strong objections from human rights groups and some members of Congress.
According to the Washington Post article, Bart S. Fisher, an international trade lawyer, was being paid US$20,000 a month by Sudan to help the strife-torn African nation in its attempts to have US economic sanctions lifted and be removed from the State Department’s list of terrorism-sponsoring governments, according to federal registration documents.
The hiring had angered US human rights activists and some lawmakers because of the Sudanese regime’s history of alleged genocide and other atrocities against its citizens during a decades-long civil war, the Washington Post article stated.
