Integrity is a quality no citizen compromises when selecting their future President. Therefore, Irfaan Ali who was recently elected to serve as the PPP’s Presidential Candidate must come clean about the authenticity of his qualifications and his acquired wealth during his time as Housing and Tourism Minister.
This is according to Head of Transparency International Guyana Inc. (TIGI), Dr. Troy Thomas.
During an interview with this news agency, Dr. Thomas said, “Integrity in a Presidential Candidate is very important because if and when they acquire office, they are going to be handling resources which do not belong to them. They would be managing on behalf of the people. So you want people who are going to be transparent and accountable and so Ali must prove that he possesses these qualities. He cannot be silent anymore about the allegations surrounding his qualifications.”
Dr. Thomas said, too, that any Presidential Candidate who wants to prove that they want to do right by the people would not hesitate to answer questions that strike at the heart of their integrity. “With the evidence that people are able to pull together, the fact that he has a qualification that is not offered by a University he claims he got it from, I mean, something just doesn’t seem right there…He needs to clarify what is going on,” expressed the TIGI Head.
He said that other Presidential Candidates who may be smeared in allegations of corruption should not offer silence in the face of questions from the citizenry.
Further to this, Dr. Thomas said that over the years, Ali has faced several accusations regarding his massive accumulation of wealth during his years as Minister of Housing and Tourism. The TIGI Head said that the public has not forgotten this, and as a Presidential Candidate, he must explain this before he is given the keys to the highest office of the land.
