“Very soon”, “very shortly”: Mohamed crumbles under basic media questions

In his first substantive encounter with the media on Monday, United States-sanctioned businessman Azruddin Mohamed – who is campaigning to become Guyana’s next president – struggled to answer basic questions about his party’s policy agenda if elected.

Mohamed and other members of his team – including former APNU minister Tabitha Sarabo-Haley and Chairman of the A New and United Guyana (ANUG) Mark France, arrived at the Umana Yana in Georgetown on Monday to submit their lists of candidates to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) in order to contest the upcoming General and Regional Elections on September 1.

Their party called We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) will be contesting in all the regions.

Mohamed, who has been sanctioned by the United States government for gold smuggling and is charged by the Guyana Government for tax evasion, wants to be the country’s next president.

But when pressed by the media on policies he would like to implement, Mohamed could not provide answers. Instead, he told reporters “very soon” or “very shortly” when asked to reveal his plans and vision for the country if he wins the presidency.

Asked if he will be releasing a manifesto, Mohamed said “very shortly”.

After being repeatedly grilled to speak on at least one of his policies, Mohamed went mum but his teammate, France, stepped in to rescue him with the response “we’re coming with a people-centered policy that will look at people”.

Asked directly for his ideas and plans for Guyana’s energy sector, Mohamed said “very shortly, we will be addressing all these matters. We just gotto cross all these hurdles. You know the kind of victimisation I’m in.”

Asked to reveal his prime ministerial candidate, Mohamed said “very shortly”.

Asked why should citizens vote for him, considering the serious sanctions levied against him and the risks they pose for the country, Mohamed said “the sanctions matter when it comes to my businesses”. In 2024, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had announced that it sanctioned Nazar Mohamed and his son, Azruddin Mohamed, as well as several of their companies.

According to a statement from OFAC, this is related to the evasion of taxes on gold exports, noting that between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise omitted more than 10 thousand kilograms (kg) of gold from import and export declarations and avoided paying more than US$50 million in duty taxes to the Government of Guyana.

Recently, US Congressman Carlos Gimenez expressed that “in the US Congress we are alarmed by the regime in Venezuela’s attempt to undermine Guyana through its pro-Maduro puppet candidate Azruddin Mohamed, who is sanctioned by OFAC.”

Asked to respond to this, Mohamed said “you know where that came from.”

Mohamed, who has never hosted a press conference since he announced his bid to run for president, was asked when he will host such an important event to engage the media. In response, he said “very soon”.

Already, the PPP and the APNU have launched their official campaigns for the elections. Asked when he will launch his, Mohamed said “very soon”.

Asked to respond to concerns that the United States’ support for Guyana in the border controversy with Venezuela could be jeoparised considering the sanctions against him, Mohamed opted not to respond. Instead, France said “we are a sovereign nation and we have international allies that we will not be looking to jeoparise our roles with them, instead we will be building and increasing on those roles that we have”.

However, United States Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar recently cautioned that “individuals sanctioned for illicit activities must not be allowed to jeopardize” the important Guyana-US relations.

Vice President of Guyana Dr Bharrat Jagdeo also recently pointed out that both Mohamed and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro are US-sanctioned individuals, indicating that if the Guyanese businessman wins the presidency, “he may very well lose the US support on the border issue.”