Declaring that the People’s Progressive Party Government has no place for child molesters and sexual predators, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, has broken his silence on the allegations of sexual assault and rape against Minister of Local Government, Nigel Dharamlall.

The allegations were made by a 16- year old indigenous girl, and the Police have since launched an investigation.

During an interview that was carried on his Facebook page, the Vice President said the PPP holds a strong view against any person who is accused of sexual assault. However, he cautioned that due process must be allowed to follow.

“We are intolerant of anybody harassing women or more so molesting children. We take a strong view on that matter. We also believe that people must not be tried in the social media, this is not a political matter, an allegation was made, it was fully investigated and the Minister is now facing the full consequences of that,” the Vice President said.

Mr. Jagdeo assured that the investigations being conducted by the Police will be be impartial and that there will be no government interference. He said the party cannot account for the behaviour of all of its members.

“We allowed the process to continue. Process is important, the state lived up to its responsibility to this child. It took the child into custody and all of the processes associated with the law has been followed. The process associated with the Minister—he was presented with the allegation, he was taken into custody and he was placed on bail, the Minister went on leave. That doesn’t often happen in countries like ours, we allowed the process the work” Jagdeo declared.

The President and the Government have been strongly criticised for their slow response to the allegations. The Minister was only sent on administrative leave to allow the investigation to take place, following his own request.

Jagdeo said the case should not be tried on social media, since that could harm a proper investigation.

“In the party that I am from, we don’t take abuse of anybody lightly especially children that is our position now and as we said before, should the Minister be found guilty he faces the consequences. There is no cover-up here,” Jagdeo assured.

The Opposition and a number of other groups have been protesting outside the President’s office, calling for the investigation to be thorough and for the Minister to be removed from office completely, pointing to other previous allegations against him.

Related posts:

Jagdeo blames justice protesters for school girl seeking no further action in probe of rape allegations against Govt. Minister Association of Women Lawyers, GPSU and TCI join calls for thorough and full investigation into rape allegations against Minister Dharamlall National Toshaos Council calls for independent and impartial probe of rape allegations against Local Govt. Minister Local Government Minister to proceed on leave to allow probe of rape allegations