Geisha Kow­lessar

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is ac­cus­ing the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment of de­lib­er­ate­ly leak­ing a video, pur­port­ed­ly show­ing a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter rolling a mar­i­jua­na cig­a­rette, so as to not deal with al­le­ga­tions of cer­tain gangs be­ing award­ed gov­ern­ment con­tracts.The video, which was post­ed on YouTube and aired lo­cal­ly on Wednes­day night, showed a man re­sem­bling a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter un­wrap­ping a cig­a­rette, plac­ing a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na in­side the cig­a­rette skin and then rolling it back to­geth­er. The man ap­peared to be in a ho­tel room with two women.Yes­ter­day, PNM pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Faris Al-Rawi said it was pos­si­ble the video may have been leaked by gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives to di­vert pub­lic at­ten­tion from re­cent al­le­ga­tions of gangs be­ing giv­en State con­tracts which have been wide­ly re­port­ed in the me­dia.

He added: "The PNM wants to know whether the UNC it­self leaked this video so as not to deal with a much larg­er prob­lem when one ap­pre­ci­ates that the Prime Min­is­ter has said ab­solute­ly noth­ing about claims that the Life Sport Pro­gramme is fund­ing crim­i­nal and gang ac­tiv­i­ties in Cara­po."If the video con­firms what peo­ple sus­pect it to be and if the min­is­ter is re­moved the gov­ern­ment would have ex­tri­cat­ed it­self from hav­ing to ex­plain to the crim­i­nal el­e­ments why ghost gangs can no longer be fund­ed."Say­ing this in­ci­dent was yet an­oth­er scan­dal in the PP Gov­ern­ment, Al-Rawi said the video, which has gone vi­ral, ap­peared to have caused se­ri­ous con­cerns and li­a­bil­i­ty to "some­one who re­sem­bles and sounds like the loud­est mem­ber of the PP Gov­ern­ment.

"The pur­suit of crim­i­nal­i­ty in this coun­try has to start with Cab­i­net mem­bers and they too have to be held ac­count­able for their own deeds. I can on­ly pray that this Gov­ern­ment's me­dia cam­paign which re­quests an­oth­er six years is noth­ing but a dark and sick com­e­dy of cyn­i­cism," Al-Rawi added.Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith said he too had seen the video. On whether a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be launched, Grif­fith said he did not have the au­thor­i­ty to man­date the po­lice to con­duct a probe."I can­not tell the po­lice what to do. The launch of a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion is sole­ly for po­lice of­fi­cers. As Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter I do not play a role in that," Grif­fith said.

Asked what he thought about the video and its po­ten­tial reper­cus­sions for the Gov­ern­ment, Grif­fith re­fused to com­ment.Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams said he had heard about the video but had not yet seen it."At this point I have no com­ment be­cause at this time I have not seen the video. I am on­ly hear­ing of it," Williams added.The sto­ry yes­ter­day made re­gion­al head­lines, in­clud­ing be­ing re­port­ed by Guyana's StabroekNews.