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Saturday Nov. 13, 2021

COUNTRY-WIDE SAFE CITY PROGRAMME, GUN AMNESTY PERIOD TO AID CRIME FIGHTING

PRESIDENT ALI MEETS WITH QATAR INVESTMENT AUTHORITY

Friday Nov. 12, 2021

COUNTRY-WIDE SAFE CITY PROGRAMME, GUN AMNESTY PERIOD TO AID CRIME FIGHTING President Irfaan Ali you a better option at life.”

SAFE CITY has announced a range of measures in the pipeline to not only fight crime but also to reform the lives of criminals in Guyana.

In a broadcast, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces announced that a programme would soon be launched to reform criminals who want to change their lives. The programme will be premised on confidentiality.

“Once you want to change your life, we want a discussion with you. We want to talk to you to give you an alternative pathway to earning an income and to living a decent life. The life of crime is short, you may have in your head short-term glory, but it’s short-lived. We want to work with you in giving

The President also said that there will be a period for gun amnesty, where persons with illegal firearms can turn over their weapons.

HIGHEST PENALTY The amnesty would also help persons to change their lives since, according to the Head of State, he has charged the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, to examine the existing laws and make amendments so as to ensure that the full force of the law is applied to persons with illegal weapons.

“I have asked the Attorney General to look at the laws and to propose an amendment to apply the highest penalty for persons found with illegal weapons because that is a

President Irfaan Ali

major contributory factor [for the crime].”

President Ali also presented crime statistics.

He pointed out that crime has had an overall 19.4% decrease from 2020 to 2021. This, he said, has been achieved although

his Government inherited the Guyana Police Force (GPF) with more than 90% of their vehicular assets not functioning as they should.

Despite this decrease in crime nationwide, President Ali stated that

regions 1, 6, 7 and 9 have had increases.

He said that the GPF would tailor specific policies and programmes to deal with the increases at a region-to-region level.

C O U N T RY W I D E

PROGRAMME It was also noted that Region 4 A—an area that the Police has often had difficulties with in the past—has recorded the largest decrease—43.4%.

The statistics, President Ali said, shows that areas covered under the Safe City Programme are showing better crimefighting results.

To address all the regions, he explained, the Government will develop a ‘Safe Country Programme’ that will see the entire country connected to CCTV cameras, monitored by the relevant authorities.

The aim of this, the President pointed out, is to have a proactive approach to crimefighting.

PRESIDENT ALI MEETS WITH QATAR INVESTMENT AUTHORITY

President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, a high-level government team and several private sector heads, met with two executives from the Qatar Investmen

President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, a high-level government team and several private sector heads, met with two executives from the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) -Mr. Abdulhadi F A Al-Hajri and Mr. Dany Farah Nakhoul Thursday afternoon.

The meeting was

held at the Office of the President on Shiv Chanderpaul Drive.

President Ali told the gathering that the meeting was critical and can open up many opportunities for cooperation between the government, the local private sector, and QIA. He highlighted his government’s desire

to make Guyana the hub for agriculture and food security within the region and further afield while pointing to the numerous opportunities in other sectors that will promote the overall growth and development of Guyana.

The high-level government team

featured Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh; Minister of Agriculture, Zukfikar Mustapha; Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat; Minister of Tourism, Industry, and Commerce, Oneidge Walrond; and Minister

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within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar.

President of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association, Mr. Rafeek Khan; President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Timothy Tucker; President of the Private Sector

Commission, Mr. Paul Cheong; President of the Aircraft Owners Association, Mr. Gerald Gouveia and President of the Guyana Oil and Gas Energy Chamber, Mr. Manniram Prashad were the private sector representatives.

Friday Nov. 12, 2021

Four to contest PNCR leadership

With the expectation of a new Leader to head the 60-year-old and largest Opposition Party the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R), today conducted its Nomination Day with four members vying for the party’s top leadership role.

The annual Biennial Congress is hosted every two years; an internal election is conducted for the leader and several other executive positions in the party.

Out of those elections a People’s National Congress Central Executive Committee (CEC), the governing body of the Party will be formed.

This executive consists of a Party Leader, Chairman, Vice Chairman, and fifteen members of the Executive Committee. These are elected at the Biennial

Congress. The General Secretary is appointed by the Leader, from among the 15 elected members.

Ten other members are co-opted to the Central Executive by the Leader and other elected members.

Additionally, each of the Party’s 10 Regions elects a representative to the Central Executive Committee.

The Chairpersons of the Youth and Women’s arms are also Central Executive Committee Members.

At this year’s congress, four senior members have thrown their hats in the race. They have all promised to revitalize the PNCR with different leadership skills in order to take the party to the next election. They also propose to regain support that has been lost over the years.

The Members contesting this year

are Former General Secretary of the PNC, Aubrey Norton; former Party Chairman, Basil Williams; party executive member, Dr. Richard Van West Charles; and current leader of the opposition, Joseph Harmon.

With the current leader of the party, David Granger showing no sign of taking part in the race, all those contesting handed over their list of nominations this morning at Congress Place signalling the official race to the leadership role. The Congress will be held on December 11.

Speaking to the media after handing in his list, Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Harmon said that he expects that his level of leadership and experience will take him to the top.

“I bring to the party leadership, the fact that I have been involved in these processes since

2010. I have managed elections; I have managed the coalition; I have managed the APNU and I have been able to show working together as a team that we were able to move our partnership and our numbers from 2006, when we had 114,000 persons voting for us to about 208,000 and by 2020.

In 2011, we moved that initial figure to 139,000.

By 2015 we moved it according to the GECOM figures, to 218,000. So, what you see is an upward trajectory in what we can do,” Harmon noted Mr. Harmon said that he believes with his leader he can also bring the PPP/C Government down by working through a united PNCR. “As I go across this country, I feel that level of optimism, I feel that energy, which is coming out and I feel extremely

WCB. Dead is a 24-year-old, Pedal Cyclist, Neville Anthony Small.

According to reports, the incident occurred just around 05:10 hours yesterday afternoon when a motorcar drove by 45-year-old Sandra Gittens of Brushe Dam, Friendship, East Coast Demerara.

The family of a pedal after he was hit by a car She was Resident cyclist is now in mourning on the Profit Public Road, proceeding east along the

northern side of the road.

Ms. Gittens claimed that at the time, she was blinded by the lights of a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. This caused her to collide with the pedal cyclist who was proceeding west along the northern side of the said road.

As a result of the impact, the Small was thrown onto the front windscreen then onto the roadway where

confident that with what I have put together under my leadership we are going to triumph in the next elections.

“And, after that, we have to basically work on bringing our party together, uniting our party so that we can actually fight the installed PPP regime that has been wreaking havoc on the people of this country.”

According to Harmon, that his team has provided a ten-point leader focus that he plans to roll out once he becomes leader.

Some of the points are to expand the base of the party, bring unity and merge the leader of the opposition with the leader of the party, among other things. Harmon also promised that if he does not win he will continue to work on building the party.

While the theme of unity resonates through the promises of those in the race, former General Secretary of the PNC, Norton, says he comes out and fits well with the bigger picture of being in Government by presenting himself to Guyana with a clean slate.

“One of the advantages I think I have is that the PPP/C Party knows full well that there is no illegality that they can go after me for. Therefore, I can tell them as I think once it is true.

“I think because you are fighting a criminal cabal that is the PPP and people, even they themselves accept that they are

corrupt, the die is cast.”

“I think that will put me in a better position when it comes to the national battle.”

Mr. Norton also pointed out that there is a need to reach out to the grassroots following the congress vote and that he feels that he remains the better man for the job.

“First of all, I think I have always been connected with our party base. I think I know more party comrades at a personal level because I have travelled the country and worked with them.”

Party executive member, Dr. Richard Van West Charles spoke about his experience.

He said that will bring a reorganized fight against the PPP. “I think at this time it’s a call to the party for leadership both in terms of its reorganization, and leadership to confront the PPP. The discrimination, the shenanigans that they are moving and the unilateral actions that have been taken by the PPP without respect for the constitution in many ways are there for all to see.”

Dr. Van West Charles added that his track record will also show how he stands from the rest. He has been helping those in need of help to get the help they deserved. He said he will plan to reach the grassroots, a group he described as the population as a hold.

Pedal cyclist killed on Profit Public Road

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he sustained injuries to his head and about his body.

He was picked up in an unconscious state and taken to Fort Wellington Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Gittens was then taken into custody to assist with the continuation of the investigation.

Friday Nov. 12, 2021

F.W. de Klerk, Last President of Apartheid South Africa, Dies at 85

F.W. de Klerk, who as president of South Africa dismantled the apartheid system that he and his ancestors had helped put in place, died at his home near Cape Town on Thursday. He was 85.

His death was confirmed by the F.W. de Klerk Foundation, which said in a statement that he had been receiving treatment for cancer.

A member of a prominent Afrikaner family, Mr. de Klerk had vehemently defended the separation of the races during his long climb up the political ladder. But once he took over as president in 1989, he stunned his deeply divided nation, and the wider world, by reconsidering South

Africa’s racist ways, a step that led to his sharing the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela, whom he had released from prison.

South Africa had become such a pariah in the eyes of the world by the 1980s, its internal strife and tainted reputation so disruptive to the economy, that Mr. de Klerk argued that the country’s future depended on a new course.

“He didn’t say apartheid was bad or immoral, but that he had decided it wasn’t going to work,” said Herman J. Cohen, who held talks with Mr. de Klerk during that tumultuous time as the State Department’s top Africa adviser in

the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

With its web of insidious laws doling out rights, privileges, and even meal sizes in prisons based on skin colour, apartheid was not easy to undo; ending it required years of legislative action and significant national angst.

But when Mr. de Klerk in 1990 announced the lifting of the 30-year ban on the African National Congress and the release from prison of its most prominent leader, Mr. Mandela, he set in motion a transformation so powerful that it quickly pushed him to the margins.

Mr. Mandela would

trample Mr. de Klerk in presidential elections just four years after winning his freedom. Even as Mr. Mandela invited Mr. de Klerk into his transitional government as second deputy president, Mr. de Klerk struggled with his diminished role and eventually quit.

He then sought to transform the National Party, which his grandfather had helped create, from a whitedominated organization into a multiracial one with the clout of the A.N.C., but those efforts fizzled. Frustrated by internal party tensions and criticism from the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated the

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country’s past, Mr. de Klerk announced his retirement from politics in 1997.

“I was seething,” he wrote of a frank speech Mr. Mandela made in Sweden after the prize ceremony. “It was only with the greatest selfcontrol that I once again managed to bite my tongue and not shatter once and for all the illusion that there was a cordial relationship between me and Mandela.”

He added: “It was ironic that we had both traveled so far to be granted the world’s highest accolade for peace and reconciliation — while the relationship between us was characterized by so much vitriol and suspicion.”

In his own autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,” Mr. Mandela characterized his relationship with Mr. de Klerk as one born of necessity. “To make peace with an enemy,” he wrote, “one must work with that enemy, and that enemy becomes one’s partner.”

Although the two men would become symbols of racial harmony, their likenesses sold in South African shops on T-shirts and as salt and pepper shakers, Mr. Mandela was circumspect in his praise of Mr. de Klerk’s role in ending apartheid.

“Despite his seemingly progressive actions,” Mr. Mandela wrote, “Mr. de Klerk was by no means the great emancipator.

He was a gradualist, a careful pragmatist.

He did not make any of his reforms with the intention of putting himself out of power. He made them for precisely the opposite reason: to ensure power for the Afrikaner in a new dispensation.”

As a new generation of Black South Africans found their voice, Mr. de Klerk’s legacy faced increasing criticism. In a final message — a video released by his foundation hours after his death — he clarified his stance on apartheid.

In particular, he spoke to those who he said did not believe his apology for the pain and indignity caused by racist policies, and apologized once again, “without qualification.”

“Allow me in this last message to share with you the fact that since the early ’80s, my views changed completely,” Mr. de Klerk said, looking frail, his voice shaking. “It was as if I had a conversion and in my heart of hearts realized that apartheid was wrong.”

He is survived by his wife, Elita, and his children Jan and Susan, his foundation said.

Thursday Nov. 11, 2021

Schuman writes on Chief Election Officer and Senior functionaries of the GECOM Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh Chairwoman of the Guyana Elections Commission High Street Georgetown Guyana Dear Madam Chair It is my sincere hope that you have been keeping well in this time of COVID and wish you continued strength. I also take this opportunity to wish you the best on this Remembrance Day. The sacrifices of our people in uniform cannot be forgotten.

In reference to the captioned subject matter, I write to solicit your forceful intervention as the Executive Chair of the Commission to seek external support for the hiring process for these very important positions.

Madam Chair, the troubles of the political history of Guyana and the troubles that reoccur are but a few page-turns away and quite voluminous.

There continue to be two political parties that purport to represent Guyana sitting to the right and left of you, when in fact we know they are very partisan; and the nation is aware that the

Price-Carter formula has outlived its usefulness as was clearly evidenced by the most recent elections and previous elections.

The last elections also saw arguably the largest number of observer missions attending Guyana’s elections of which there are, at minimum, four reports emanating from the 2020 elections. In all the reports dating back to the initial elections that came out of the Price-Carter formula, there have been consistent calls for a revision of a variety of processes to ensure an impartial and unbiased Commission.

Were we to set aside those recommendations, it would demonstrate the respect we have for our international partners, the value we place on their work, and it has the potential of painting Guyana as finding friends of convenience instead of friends with mutual values and respect.

Against this backdrop, as the leader of the Liberty and Justice Party, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, and as a Sitting Member of Parliament, I am imploring you to guide the commission to solicit and accept support from our international partners to conduct this process to fill these important offices and restore the integrity, credibility and public’s confidence in the commission that is so desperately needed at this juncture.

If this cannot be done, there exists a public fear that the status quo will once again lend itself to political manipulation as we have seen in the past and that will further undermine “THE” institution that was meant to fortify democracy in Guyana.

The confidence I place in you as the Chair is unquestioned, however, the commissioners in themselves, though highly

qualified and capable as individuals and specialists in their respective fields, do not enjoy the same from me nor the public.

I and the public look forward to your kind and timely response on this matter.

Sincerely yours_____________________ Hon. Lenox R. O. Shuman Deputy Speaker; MP

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