Co-founder of Change Guyana denied repatriation flights to Guyana
Co-founder and former prime-ministerial candidate of Change Guyana, Nigel Hinds, was denied approval on two occasions to board repatriation flights leaving Miami, Florida for Guyana. Hinds said that he has been stranded in the US for more than three months now and registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be repatriated back to Guyana. He even submitted his repatriation form along with his negative Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test results for COVID-19 to the relevant authorities before May 21.
Nevertheless, he received a disapproval notice from authorities, which prohibited him from boarding the first flight which arrived in Guyana on June 6.
Director General of the Guyana
Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Egbert Field, had said that a total of 12 persons were taken off the first flight. Field had explained that this was done because these passengers had done the wrong COVID-19 test.
The Change Guyana Party member, however, said that no one told him anything as to why he was disapproved. Moreover, Hinds argued that the COVID-19 test he conducted was the correct one despite it did not specifically mention PCR on the slip result.
He highlighted that his test was done at Walgreens, a site which only does PCR testing.Hinds also differentiated that a PCR test will be labelled as “Sars coV 2 COVID-19 negative” whereas a test for the antibodies will be labelled as “IgG IgM”.
The former prime-ministerial candidate said that after being denied an initial flight, he then decided to try again. He said he re-submitted his documents to board a second flight, which arrived yesterday.
However, once again Hinds received the disappointing news of a second disapproval notice.
This time, he said, he demanded an explanation and was told by the Guyana Consulate based in Miami that his disapproval and rejections was instructed by the authorities in Guyana. Attempts last night to solicit comments on Hinds’ repatriation disapprovals were futile but this publication will continue to follow this issue.
(Kaieteur News)