WHEN DEFLECTION BECOMES THE STORY

THE 592 GUARDIAN  |  EDITORIAL  |  JUNE 14, 2025

WHEN DEFLECTION BECOMES THE STORY

Minister McCoy, a Mildew Sandwich, and the Art of Attacking the Messenger

I.THE MILDEW SANDWICH IS NOT MISINFORMATION. IT IS EVIDENCE.

Minister of Public Affairs Kwame McCoy made a remarkable statement in recent media appearances. Commenting on photographs circulating on social media depicting what appeared to be mold-contaminated food served to schoolchildren under the National School Feeding Program, Minister McCoy declared: “We see it every day, right before our eyes, that someone could take a mildew sandwich, and upload it on their social media page. As mischievous as that is, it seeks to destroy a program of government that is important for the children of this country.”

Let us be precise about what Minister McCoy is arguing. He is not arguing that the food shown in the images was wholesome. He is not arguing that the photographs were doctored or fabricated. He is arguing that the act of sharing photographic evidence of contaminated food given to schoolchildren constitutes mischief. In the Minister’s framework, the problem is not the sandwich. The problem is that someone photographed it.

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The Minister has not denied that children received such food. He has denied the public’s right to know about it.“

This is a curious moral position for a government minister to occupy, particularly one who sits in a Cabinet that prides itself on its commitment to child welfare. We invite Minister McCoy, and indeed every member of the Cabinet who has been silent on this matter, to answer a simple question: Would you serve that sandwich to your own children? To your nieces and nephews? To any child in your household?

If the answer is no — and we suspect it is — then the photograph is not misinformation. It is a mirror. And the Minister’s fury is not directed at falsehood. It is directed at the reflection.

II.WHERE IS THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION? WHERE IS THE NATIONAL COORDINATOR?

The conspicuous response of Minister of Education Sonia Parag on this matter is itself a statement. The National School Feeding Program falls within the ambit of her ministry’s responsibilities for child nutrition and school welfare. The public has seen the images. The public has heard Minister McCoy’s deflection. What the public has  heard is deflection and defense  from Minister Parag — no condemnation, no announcement of an investigation, no assurance that those responsible for procurement and preparation standards would be held to account.

Notably absent from the public discourse is Mr. Mahendra Phagwah, the National Coordinator of the School Feeding Program — the official most directly responsible for the operational integrity of a program that puts food in the mouths of some of Guyana’s most vulnerable children. Mr. Phagwah’s biography is that of a man who grew up in abject poverty and who, by his own account, understands intimately what it means for a hungry child to depend on a school meal. That personal history makes his public silence on this matter not merely a bureaucratic failure, but a moral one.

The 592 Guardian calls on both Minister Parag and Mr. Phagwah to make immediate public statements, to initiate a transparent investigation into the procurement, preparation, and quality control standards of the National School Feeding Program, and to ensure that accountability is applied to those responsible for placing contaminated food before children in the care of the State.

III. ON THE QUESTION OF CREDIBILITY — AND WHO LACKS IT

Minister McCoy did not limit himself to defending spoiled sandwiches. He turned his remarks upon Opposition Leader Azruddin Intiaz Mohamed, describing him as “the person with the most sordid credibility; irreparable credibility” — a man who, in McCoy’s telling, has forfeited any standing to comment on government conduct.

We apply to this characterization the very standard the Minister invokes against his critics: evidence. Minister McCoy has offered none. He has produced no court finding, no criminal conviction, no adjudicated finding of misconduct against Mr. Mohamed. In Guyana’s constitutional order — as in any democracy — a man is not guilty by ministerial declaration. Mr. Mohamed has not been charged with, much less convicted of, any offence.

The Minister’s language — “sordid”, “irreparable” — is the language of a verdict. It requires evidence commensurate with its severity. None has been provided. In its absence, what Minister McCoy has offered is not accountability. It is character assassination by press conference.

“Calling a man’s credibility sordid and irreparable, without evidence, is not political commentary. It is precisely the conduct the Minister purports to condemn.”

IV.THE PUBLIC RECORD OF MINISTER MCCOY — WHAT THE COURTS AND THE PRESS HAVE ESTABLISHED

It is in this context that the public record of Minister Kwame McCoy himself becomes not merely relevant, but necessary. The 592 Guardian does not raise these matters to engage in the same undocumented character assassination the Minister has deployed against others. We raise them because they are matters of public record, established through judicial proceedings and media reporting whose legal standing was itself adjudicated by the High Court of Guyana.

On the question of criminal conduct: The public record reflects that in March 2017, Minister McCoy was found guilty of unlawful assault and was ordered by a magistrate’s court to pay a fine of $20,000 or face one month’s imprisonment. This followed an earlier conviction in 2012, when Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry found him guilty of assault and imposed a court fine. These are not allegations. These are judicial findings.

On the question of the audio recording: In 2009, media houses in Guyana reported on the existence of an audio recording in which a voice alleged to be that of Mr. McCoy was heard soliciting sexual contact from a teenage schoolboy. Mr. McCoy sought to suppress reporting on this matter through an injunction against media organizations. That injunction was subsequently discharged by the High Court, which accepted the legal defenses of public interest and justification — meaning a judge found that the public had a legitimate right to know about these allegations, and that there was sufficient basis in the material to justify their publication.

The relevant contemporaneous reporting can be found at the following sources, which remain in the public domain:

Critically, Minister McCoy characterized the reporting as defamatory. Yet he did not pursue a defamation action against the media houses after the injunction was discharged. In law and in logic, the decision not to sue where one has proclaimed defamation invites an obvious inference — particularly when a High Court has already found the public interest defense sufficient to permit publication.

The 592 Guardian makes no finding of guilt in respect of the audio recording. No charges were ever laid, and no court has adjudicated the recording’s authenticity or the underlying allegations. What we note — and what the public is entitled to note — is the structural irony of a minister who seeks to define credibility for others while his own public record raises questions he has, to this day, not answered.

“A minister who invokes credibility as a weapon should be prepared to have his own examined — not by allegation, but by the record.”

V. TRANSFERENCE AS POLITICAL STRATEGY

There is a clinical term for the psychological maneuver at the heart of Minister McCoy’s media intervention: transference. It is the redirection of one’s own unresolved conflicts, vulnerabilities, or histories onto another person, often with accompanying aggression.

When a minister with two criminal assault convictions on his public record, and a High Court-litigated controversy involving allegations of soliciting a minor — allegations he chose not to challenge in a defamation suit — stands before cameras and declares that another man possesses “sordid and irreparable credibility,” the reasonable observer is entitled to ask: is this an assessment of the Opposition Leader, or a description the Minister is displacing from himself?

We do not suggest the Minister is incapable of commentary on others. We suggest that the vehemence and specificity of his language, directed without evidence at a political opponent, while food unfit for human consumption was being served to schoolchildren under his government’s watch, reveals a great deal about where this administration’s priorities lie.

It lies not with the children. It lies with the narrative.

VI.THE STANDARD WE APPLY — AND DEMAND

The 592 Guardian applies one standard to all public officials, regardless of party affiliation: evidence, transparency, and accountability. We have applied it here. We have distinguished between what courts have found, what the press has reported and successfully defended in law, and what remains unproven.

We call on Minister McCoy to meet that same standard. If he believes the photographs of contaminated food are fabricated, let him say so and produce evidence. If he believes Opposition Leader Mohamed’s credibility is “sordid and irreparable,” let him cite a single verified, adjudicated instance — not an allegation, not a rumor, but a court finding or established fact — to support that characterization.

Until he does, the Minister has demonstrated not that his critics lack credibility, but that he lacks the arguments to answer them.

The mildew sandwich is on the record. The question is whether anyone in this Government has the integrity to acknowledge it.

— The Editors, The 592 Guardian

ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM FOR GUYANA