AFC raises over US$50,000 during launch of Action Plan 2011 in New York

By Natasha Waldron Anthony

The Alliance For Change party says it has distinguished itself from the other political parties that are contesting this year’s general and regional elections as the party that is using a multi-ethnic approach to advance Guyana’s development.

Party officials are in North America for the launching of the AFC’s Action Plan for 2011, and to participate in several fund-raising events in New York and Florida in the U.S., and in Toronto, Canada. During the New York launch, last Saturday at the Banquet Hall in Richmond Hill, the party’s presidential candidate, Khemraj Ramjattan, described the AFC as distinctively different from the other two political parties. “The AFC has found an East Indian and a non-East Indian (to govern), and we also have in our constitution that, if the AFC were to win the government, mid-term Sheila Holder will be the presidential candidate and I will defer back into the prime ministerial (position). We switch mid-term. That is a concrete example of giving both races, the major ethnicities in Guyana, the confidence that you are not going to be dominated by any one race at the very top of the hierarchy in the executive branch of government.”

On the issue of “healing and reconciliation”, which forms one of the ten pillars in the AFC 2011 Action Plan, the presidential-hopeful says these are necessary to ensure Guyanese live genuinely and sincerely as a multi-ethnic community, “with equal opportunities for all”, without anyone being marginalized or alienated.

The other pillars include increasing the tax threshold so certain sectors of the society can enjoy adequate spending power; reducing VAT and other taxes; and improving security through interventions that include the involvement of the United States and the United Kingdom’s Scotland Yard in drug enforcement and crime fighting.

“The other one has to do with education. We must educate Guyanese for the developmental needs. We have to incentivise students to (make them) want to go into faculties like engineering and forestry, and create a faculty that can probably incorporate jewellery making and designing at the university,” Ramjattan noted. He added that the AFC also hopes to create among primary and secondary school students an appreciation of each other’s diversity.

During the New York launch, the party was able to raise in excess of US$50,000, which will be used to fund the 2011 elections campaign. The AFC’s campaign theme for the 2011 general and regional elections is “AFC – the right turn for Guyana”.