The Office of the President yesterday defended Minister of Housing Irfaan Ali over a report in the Kaieteur News which stated that he was building a “mansion” at Leonora, West Demerara believed to be worth $300M.
The report also raised the question of how the 31-year-old minister could afford to build such a house.
In a statement yesterday afternoon, The Office of the President said it “views with extreme distaste the resort of elements of the domestic Media to character assassination and defamation.
“The recent Kaieteur News headlines that targeted Minister Irfaan Ali are the latest in the series of yellow journalistic activities.
“The Office of the President rejects such underhand tactics intended to demean and question the probity of the young Minister. Minister Ali has made significant contributions to the development of Guyana particularly in the Housing and Water sectors.
“The Office of the President rejects this malicious effort and anticipates that Minister Ali’s disclosures would continue to justify the confidence of this Administration and the Guyanese people in him.
“The public is warned that these examples of yellow journalism are now known to be a part of a dedicated plan to discredit government personalities and thus the Administration.
“The Office of the President will continue to expose the intellectual authors and their wicked designs”, the statement added. Earlier in the day, the Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon also weighed in on the matter.
At a post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President, the Government Information Agency reported him as saying that there is a concerted plot to target personalities of the PPP/C administration.
“Reason and professionalism have clearly been in short supply when the attack was conceived and put into operation; worse yet is the spectacle of impunity with which those attempts are lodged,” the HPS lamented as he referred to the KN report.
He added, according to GINA, “that the society has apparently become inured to these excesses and that the regulatory bodies, on quite a few occasions, have been emasculated by political intrigue and the failure to act by responsible, statutory and constitutional post-holders.”
“The Administration will vehemently reject such abuses, not only by correcting misinformation but also in going to great lengths to expose the intellectual authors who are responsible for designing these outrages,” he emphasized, according to GINA.
