WPA calls on Ramotar to sack AG

The Working People’s Alliance, a member of opposition coalition APNU, today called on President Donald Ramotar to sack Attorney General Anil Nandlall over statements he made in a phone conversation that has been released to the public.

The WPA statement follows:

With shock and disgust, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) has read the transcript and listened to the unedited recording of a telephone call made by Mr. Anil Nandlall, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs to a senior reporter of Kaieteur News.

WPA is convinced that the recording is genuine and is appalled by the Government’s decision to question the authenticity and accuracy of the transcript and recording and to stand by Mr. Nandlall.

This decision to rally around Mr. Nandlall makes the PPP complicit in the threats of violence and the improprieties in the obscenity-laden call by Mr. Nandlall, who announced his knowledge of breaches of laws of Guyana by at least two persons as well as a plot to attack the Kaieteur News for the purpose of harming individuals working therein.

Had the statements and threats made by Mr Nandlall been made by an ordinary citizen, it would be bad enough. That they were made by the country’s Attorney-General and Chief Legal Officer is egregious and totally unacceptable. Since there is more than enough evidence of criminality the WPA calls on the Guyana Police Force to undertake a thorough and independent investigation of all the circumstances including the authenticity of the recording.

WPA recalls that Nandlall in a 2006 letter to SN stated “Even if the law afforded a right to privacy in Guyana, having regard to the nature of the matters contained in the recorded conversation, that right to privacy would have had to bend and bow to the constitutional right to free expression. THIS HAS BEEN SUBMITTED SO THAT THE PUBLIC IS NOT MISLED ON VITAL MATTERS OF LAW” our emphasis; repeated in SN 29-10-2014.

WPA further calls on President Ramotar to relieve Mr. Nandlall of his portfolio without delay. The country can ill-afford an Attorney General who has publicly demonstrated his unfitness for any public office. His continuation in office is an insult to all Guyanese and brings Guyana into regional and international disdain.

Finally, WPA calls for individual and collective petitions/letters to bring this breach by a Senior officer of the court to the highest levels of regional and international attention