The Ministry of the Presidency yesterday rejected a suggestion by Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo that Guyana’s current political crisis is impacting its ability to access international funding to respond to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
Although the ministry did not name Nagamootoo, it noted reports published in last Friday’s daily newspapers, which were based on a virtual press conference hosted by Nagamootoo, who is the Chairperson of the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF).
Nagamootoo had told reporters, “I believe that because of the political situation in Guyana while we are in transition to a government that will emerge after [the] March 2nd 2020 elections that we cannot for sure say whether some of these international multilateral lending agencies are going to be dealing with Guyana’s applications any time soon. They probably would want to sit it out and wait until the President is sworn in.”
Calling the suggestion “inaccurate,” the ministry said in a statement yesterday that Guyana remains engaged with several of its partners and it pointed out that only last Thursday the United States of America announced that financial aid to the tune of US$475,000 would be provided to help address Guyana’s priority areas in its fight against COVID-19. “The Ministry wishes to make it clear that no international or financial institution has linked support to the Guyana’s national COVID-19 campaign to the outcome of the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections,” it said. “No international financial institution has indicated that financial aid has been made conditional upon the completion of the electoral process,” it further added.
Nagamootoo had also said that in the absence of a budget and additional international funding, government was “reconfiguring” projects to be COVID-19 related.
“We have an ongoing relationship with the [Inter-American Development Bank] for a number of projects which will be reconfigured to be COVID-19 related projects,” he explained, before adding that government was also hoping “for short term use” to tap into funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). He said other assistance had been received from the United States Government and the Indian Government which has offered “the low hanging fruit” of US$1 million for COVID-19 related assistance. China, he added, would be providing necessary equipment.
The rejection of Nagamootoo’s comments came a day after the ministry announced that President David Granger had made Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NCTF as part of a restructuring to strengthen the body.
In a statement, the ministry said Harmon, was to establish a permanent National Task Force Secretariat; assign permanent staff to manage the national campaign; create preventive measures against the disease to safeguard citizens’ health and collaborate with regional task forces and stakeholders to safeguard citizens’ health.
“The CEO is responsible, under the direction of the Chair, for directing the NCTF operations and restarting interrupted activities; all important logistics measures necessary to prevent the disease from spreading further, directing rapid responses to unexpected and emergency incidents; developing short-term plans for disease prevention and safety of the people and communicating directly with agencies, ministries, regional task forces, agencies and stakeholders,” it further said, while also noting that the CEO is also responsible also for disseminating accurate information with regard to COVID-19 to the public.
