Jagdeo scoffs at WIN’s letters to UN, CARICOM: ‘A vagrant can write the Secretary-General’

Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday brushed aside letters sent by the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) political party to international organisations, insisting they carry no weight.

“A vagrant can write the Secretary-General. Even Mad Max can write the Secretary-General. It doesn’t mean anything,” Jagdeo told reporters during his weekly press conference at Freedom House.

The letters, penned by WIN’s General Secretary Odessa Primus and released to the press on Wednesday, were addressed to CARICOM Secretary-General Dr. Carla Barnett and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. In them, WIN complained about the decision of several commercial banks to close the accounts of some of its members and candidates.

But Jagdeo said international agencies will not be swayed.

“The first thing they’ll do is Google—and they’ll see the Reuters report and tax evasion…. You think these people will then tell a local bank or any bank in the world what to do?” the Vice President questioned.

WIN, led by U.S.-sanctioned businessman Azruddin Mohamed, has claimed the closure of bank accounts amounts to discrimination and a violation of political rights. The party is calling on the UN and CARICOM to publicly condemn the banks’ actions, demand reinstatement of accounts, and even deploy observers to monitor the situation.

The letters specifically named the Bank of Nova Scotia, Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI), New Building Society (NBS), and Demerara Bank as institutions that have terminated accounts or cancelled loans of WIN members. Citizens Bank, which has also closed WIN-linked accounts, was notably not mentioned.

The banks acted amid heightened compliance requirements, particularly under Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) rules, which prohibit institutions from facilitating transactions linked to sanctioned individuals or entities.

Mohamed, his father Nazar, and their businesses were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in June 2024 for alleged gold smuggling, corruption, and other crimes. Former Labour Ministry Permanent Secretary Mae Thomas was also sanctioned.

Financial institutions in Guyana are especially sensitive to international scrutiny. In 2016, weak compliance saw major correspondent banking relationships severed by Bank of America and Citibank, crippling cross-border transactions and threatening remittances and trade.

Against that background, Jagdeo said the international community is unlikely to take the WIN letters seriously.

“Writing a letter doesn’t erase sanctions or history,” the Vice President said.