Dear Editor,
The bombshell revelation that Mr Nigel Hughes is in fact Secretary of the Amaila Falls Hydro Project Inc, while serving as Chairman of the Alliance For Change has naturally captured the public interest. His subsequent offer to resign his AFC post kept the issue in the public spotlight for many days. The Nigel Hughes headlines were a major distraction. The entire, drawn out saga may have allowed other issues to be ignored and important questions to remain unasked by the public and unanswered by the AFC.
I wish to ask some of those questions in the hope that the AFC will answer them, if possible.
1. Sithe Global was clear on one point: they would pull out unless there was unanimous parliamentary consensus.
Explaining the reason for the AFC suddenly changing policy and voting with the PPP/C to allow debate on Amaila, Mr Ramjattan said the AFC was throwing a lifeline to the project. Does Mr Ramjattan expect us to believe this nonsense?
It was clear that APNU would not support the measure. As such parliamentary unanimity was unachievable, even with the AFC’s pro vote. In this light the AFC vote was meaningless. Party leaders need to explain the real reason for the flip-flop in AFC policy and subsequent vote.
2. The smoke-screen of the Nigel Hughes bomb continues to obscure the role of his wife, Ms Cathy Hughes. Her company Video Mega Productions did public relations work for Synergy and Sithe Global. She personally interviewed Mr Fip Motilall in a PR infomercial. Ms Hughes was introduced as Public Relations Officer of Sithe Global. She is therefore intimately involved with the project. At the very least, she gained materially as owner of Video Mega.
Ms Cathy Hughes remains a voting Member of Parliament on the AFC benches.
Mr Nigel Hughes has been praised by his AFC colleagues for displaying integrity in resigning following the public revelation of his dual roles. The AFC further defended him by saying that his position at AFHP was public knowledge.
My questions are: what about his wife Ms Cathy Hughes? How does the integrity argument fit in her case? How will the AFC spin this one?
Mr Hughes was only Chairman of the AFC, his wife votes in the National Assembly. Is not her role in government greater and of more national import than his?
3. Both opposition parties saw the need for a seven-member team to head the Local Government Commission. APNU quietly maintained its position but the AFC militantly defended this stance.
Suddenly, on August 6, the AFC caved in to the PPP/C and voted for an eight-member commission. How is this explained?
Mr Ramjattan sought to pass off the capitulation as an attempt to “move on.” Does Mr Ramjattan believe that “moving on” on August 6 while ensuring gridlock on the major issue of local elections, is in the interest of Guyana? He added that he urged all parties to avoid gridlock. Does Mr Ramjattan think that the PPP/C would heed his urges when the AFC has given the PPP/C the legislative licence to stall and delay all aspects of the local elections process?
The Nigel Hughes matter has been most convenient for the AFC. The prolonged and probably artificially maintained focus on the matter has allowed other more important issues to slip under the public radar.
I hope, in the interest of the supporters of the AFC that the party has some satisfactory answers to these and other questions which I may ask later.
Yours faithfully,
Mark DaCosta
