President David Granger says there are no plans to dismiss Minister of Social Protection Volda Lawrence over comments she made downplaying child abuse accusations against city councillor Winston Harding.
Responding to questions on last week’s edition of ‘The Public Interest’ television programme, the president said that he had received an explanatory report from Lawrence on the issue of the candidature of Winston Harding on the APNU+AFC slate and has forwarded that report to the Central Executive Committee of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR).
He noted that any disciplinary action taken against Lawrence will have to come from the party and that there is no “question of her arbitrary dismissal from her ministerial position.”
Granger said that in her explanatory report Lawrence claimed that she told the media that the candidate, though accused, had not been convicted of a crime.
Lawrence had told Stabroek News that Harding was never “charged.” However, he had been charged several times and is the subject of an open case with the Child Care and Protection Agency (CC&PA).
This case, like the others, involves accusations that Harding sexually molested a minor.
“Do you think that me, the minister in charge of that (social protection), would have someone like that running? Do you think that the party would expose itself like that? We are aware of the situation but he was never charged,” Lawrence had said.
The president made sure to stress that the PNCR, of which he is the leader, “does not support the nomination of any person who has been convicted of any offence” even as he explained that Harding was nominated by the constituents.
“The PNC is a party with internal procedures. Harding was not a personal nominee… he was nominated by the constituents, persons in the community with whom he has worked,” the president said.
Lawrence, who is the Vice-Chair of the PNCR and was in charge of the APNU+AFC coalition’s Georgetown local government campaign was approached by Stabroek News after it was observed that several posters bearing Harding’s image had been branded with the tag “child molester.”
Asked to address the accusation, Lawrence said, “This is a family issue that has been going on and on and on and on for whatever reason, I can’t tell you, because if I had a brother, even if there was an accusation, this is not how I would go about helping him.”
The downplaying of the accusations as a “family issue” led local non-governmental organisation Red Thread to call for the minister to be removed.
