GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA, January 29, 2009) - Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS) and Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon told members of the media today during a press conference at the Office of the President that the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has made some of the most unacceptable statements about government’s mandate, government’s discharge of its mandate, and its assessment without identifying how legitimate its sources were.
The HPS made these comments in response to a press release issued by the Executive Committee of the GHRA on January 22.
The Cabinet Secretary said that the GHRA made “a virtual diatribe about the management by government agencies of the recent flooding on the East Coast…the thrust of their remarks notwithstanding”.
Dr. Luncheon questioned the source of the GHRA’s information, which he referred to as “grossly inaccurate” and forming the basis of the press release.
“It is the administration’s contention that the GHRA has consolidated itself as an irresponsible and unaccountable appendage of the NGO system, the NGO movement in Guyana with a propensity to engage in known inaccuracies and contributing to its anti government stance,” Dr. Luncheon said.
He noted that the release contained several other inaccuracies including the unawareness that NEOC refers specifically to the National Emergency Operated Committee which is responsible for operating disaster responses and not the National Emergency Organizing Council as was outlined in the document.
“The GHRA started out on their diatribe totally confused about specifically what the NEOC meant and what it was about,” he said.
Additionally, Dr. Roger Luncheon noted that Major-General Michael Atherly was appointed as the Project Coordinator of the National Security Secretariat and not the Director General of the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) as was also inaccurately contained in the release.
“In seeking to justify Oxfam’s duplicity, Oxfam participated in the preparatory meetings that led to the constitution of the NEOC and Oxfam sat at those meetings listening to reports made by state and non state actors about assessments. Oxfam of course never ventured an opinion or made any disclosures, those members they had their own private assessments that its service was being sent overseas. This was their statement and it was not intended for domestic consumption. Oxfam essentially was of the opinion that there is an assessment that is appropriate for the locals and then there is one in principles and the fact that their assessment was totally inaccurate and probably would have been rejected at the NEOC seems to have been lost on the GHRA,” the HPS said.
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