President denies calling Opposition “terrorists”, blames GINA

President denies calling Opposition “terrorists”, blames GINA

President Donald Ramotar is denying that he ever referred to the Opposition’s decision to vote down the Amalia Falls hydro power  Project Bill as an act of terrorism.

The Government Information Agency in a statement issued over the weekend on the President’s Address to the nation carried the by-line ” –An act of terrorism against the development of Guyana”. The statement caused a furor and the Opposition parties walked out of a Special Select Committee meeting as they threatened to further boycott the meetings until the President withdrew the statement.

On Wednesday, Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon sought to clarify the statement and pointed to the actual Address to the Nation by the President. In that Address, the President never referred to the Opposition being involved in any “act of terrorism”. Luncheon said that line was apparently added to the release by the Government Information Agency.

The issue is being looked at and addressed he assured while stating that since the President did not make the statement and there is no evidence of it in the transcript of the Address to the Nation, the President would therefore have nothing to apologize over and would not need to withdraw any statement since he never made it.

“If the records during his address to the nation is consistent with his denial, then the issue of apologizing is moot”, Dr. Luncheon said.

But while the Government turns to the records and transcript of the President’s Address to prove that he never called the Opposition’s move an “act of terrorism”, the Cabinet Secretary sought to play down the governing People’s Progressive Party’s position that the move was indeed an act of domestic terrorism.

At a Monday morning Press Conference, the Executive Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party in a prepared statement, parroted the GINA statement and linked it to a statement from the President. “

“The fact that the opposition seems comfortable in holding such a transformational project for Guyanese at ransom because of narrow partisan aims, justifies, President Donald Ramotar statement, that it is an act of terrorism”, the Executive Secretary Zulficar Mustapha told the media.

President Donald Ramotar also serves as the General Secretary of the same People’s Progressive Party.

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