Georgetown, Guyana, South America.
A day after the Ministry of the Presidency released a statement that Mr. Kit Nascimento had made inflammatory and inaccurate statements about Mr. David Granger, the Private Sector Commissioner fired back with a strongly worded article defending his position.
On Saturday, 23rd of May, 2020, the Ministry of the Presidency posted via their Facebook Page:
The Ministry of the Presidency firmly rejects the falsehoods contained in a fallacious letter written by Mr. Kit Nascimento titled, “Granger is not innocent of attempt to force rigged elections on Guyana” and published in today’s edition of the Guyana Times.
Mr. Nascimento, in his Letter to the Editor, asserts several untruths and numerous inaccuracies that were clearly designed to besmirch the good name of President David Granger and to foster hatred for him in the society.
While Mr Nascimento is free to champion his own views, the Ministry takes umbrage with the Guyana Times for disseminating those falsehoods into the public domain. The onus is on the paper’s editors and publishers to ensure that it first checks facts before rushing to publication, and to ensure that it does not spread misinformation about the sitting Head of State. Read Full Article…
However, Kit Nascimento responded by publishing the following:
Dear Editor,
David Granger’s “ Ministry of the Presidency” has demanded of me and the media that has published my letter of May 22nd, an apology for what they claim are “several untruths and numerous inaccuracies.”
I wrongly believed, from a picture showing Claudette Singh sitting at Granger’s side that was carried in the same report of his Press Conference, that Ms. Singh had attended his Press Conference. I apologize unreservedly for that mistake to David Granger and Ms. Singh.
I have absolutely no apology to make for anything else I have said in my letter, all of which is evidentially accurate.
If David Granger believes, as his Ministry claims, that I have published falsehoods “designed to besmirch” his “good name,” then like any other citizen, he can sue me for libel. I am sure that there are many many lawyers in Guyana who would be pleased to rush to defend me in Court and be delighted at the opportunity to cross examine David Granger.
So what did I say that they want me to apologize for? I said that he arrived at the Convention Centre “with a massive security akin to an Idi Amin.” The fact is that Granger has surrounded himself, as a “President” ruling a tiny Country with an amount of security larger than any of our previous Presidents and, certainly, of the kind employed by military dictators such as Idi Amin of Uganda infamy, Sadam Hussein of Iraq, Fidel Castro of Cuba, General Gowan of Nigeria, all of whom I can speak of from my personal experience, having met with them all at one time or another in my past.
The Ministry says that I “must know that President Granger remains President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana until another President is sworn in.” Yes, I also know that David Granger has held on to the Presidency long after, more than a year since another President should have been sworn in. He has spent millions of tax payers dollars paying lawyers to keep him in office by refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the No Confidence Motion against his Government and, even after the CCJ ruling against him, further delaying the holding of an election.
David Granger, we also know, hangs on to a caretaker, de facto Presidency 83 days, as I write this letter, after the election was held on March 2nd,2020 because GECOM, rather than rejecting Mingo’s fraudulent attempt at rigging the elections result, has taken us into a Recount.
In my view and many others, David Granger used his dubious Presidential authority to force himself upon the Chairman of GECOM and her staff and the Caricom Scrutineers in meeting which should never have been held.
I did not, in my letter, say that David Granger, as the Ministry claimed refuse “to answer questions” at his Press Conference. What I said in my letter is that when Granger was asked “whether he would recognize and accept the results of the Recount” “he refused to recognize that the recount of the ballots must deliver the results of the elections.”
Granger was asked the question twice and preferred instead to answer it by saying that “whatever declaration is made by the Chairman of the Elections Commission would be recognized as legitimate by the Coalition.” What I have written is on the record and was seen and heard by all. Ms. Singh, of course, does not necessarily have to recognize the Recount, hence Granger’s answer.
At the Press Conference, Granger also refused, when asked, to recognize that the Lowenfield declaration is fraudulent and should be rejected. That too is on the record. Granger too refuses to admit to the evidence in the Statements of Poll in his possession that he has lost the Elections. I challenge him to publish those Statements.
I have the utmost respect for the Office of the President. I have little or no respect for a man who holds on to it, knowing that he has lost and endangers the entire nation by doing so. If David Granger’s character and good name is in question he has only himself to blame.
As I concluded in my letter, and stand firmly behind, “Granger hangs onto power from a fraud committed and embraced in GECOM by the very people he has appointed to the Commission and which is embraced by the leading spokespersons of his own party. I repeat, Granger can no longer claim to be innocent.
He must do the decent thing. He owes it to the people of this country. He must concede that he has lost. Let his country free.
Yours sincerely
Kit Nascimento
