GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo says he exercised his right to fair comment as he denied defaming the chairman of the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly- Guyana (IDPADA-G), Vincent Alexander.
The attorneys for Alexander said that Jagdeo had defamed their client by falsely and erroneously claiming that Alexander ran IDPADA-G for personal gain, advancement, and benefit.
But through his attorneys, Jagdeo denies that the publications of August 19 and 20 last year were defamatory, false, or malicious as alleged or capable of any defamatory meaning whatsoever.
The IDPADA-G chairman filed a GUY$159 million (One Guyana dollar=US$0.004 cents) lawsuit against the Vice President, who had earlier refused Alexander’s offer to settle the matter out of court for GUY$50 million.
In documents filed in the High Court, Jagdeo, while maintaining that his utterances were not defamatory, said he would contend that the words that Alexander complains about “are substantially actual.
“The words complained of were fair comments and an expression of honest opinions on matters of public importance, and their publication was for the public benefit. The first named defendant was under a public duty to publish the said words to the general public, entitled to receive such information. The words complained of were published on an occasion of qualified privilege,” Jagdeo said in the court documents.
Jagdeo said IDPADA-G is a private company, and at all material times, Alexander was of its beneficial owners.
He said the company received GUY$500 million from the government from 2018 to 2022, and he reserves the right to introduce evidence of further disbursements of public funds to that company.
Jagdeo said financial records show that the company disbursed GUY$343,000 as grants “to ordinary Afro Guyanese who are intended to be the true beneficiaries of the funds” and GUY$42 million as salaries and allowances out of a total disbursement of GUY$100 million in 2020.
Jagdeo said he “will rely upon the audited financial statements of the company during the entire period it has been the recipient of State funds” and that he “will contend that only a small proportion of the said State funds have been disbursed as grants to ordinary Afro-Guyanese.”
The Vice President said he would justify using the word “parasite” that the actions constituted “a drain on society.”
Jagdeo claimed he had received numerous complaints from persons in the African Guyanese community and the intended beneficiaries of the money that they have been unable to access and have been excluded from any decision regarding the use and allocation.
Jagdeo said he would contend that he is politically, legally, and morally urged to speak out and condemn acts of illegalities, corruption, nepotism, and cronyism and has an additional duty to expose excesses, abuse of power, mismanagement, incompetence in public office, misuse of State resources and violations of the law and the Constitution.
The government has since withheld funds from IDPADA-G, the country’s privately-run coordinating mechanism for the United Nations Decade for African Descent, prompting legal action to compel the government to disburse the funds.
No date has yet been set for the hearing of the lawsuit.
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