There is nothing which illustrates better how politics has contaminated every human activity in the Co-operative Republic than Minister of Education Shaik Baksh’s response to the offer by the AFC to donate some materials to Santa Rosa Primary School. No, said the Minister, the party would not be allowed to donate to the school unless it got permission from the school management, the education department, the regional administration and ultimately the Ministry of Education. One need not be very familiar with how things operate in these 83,000 square miles to know that this bureaucratic barrier might constitute a greater challenge to the unwary donor than trying to scale the wall of a Norman castle while defenders stand ready with their boiling oil on the ramparts.
Now the Minister could have left it at that, but being a man of greater frankness than discretion, he then went on to say that his ministry accepted assistance from international bodies and non-governmental organisations, but it “would not allow the AFC to use this as a political agenda for their political objectives and goals to go into these schools and do what they want.” In other words, that is the prerogative of the PPP alone (albeit in its governmental incarnation). One can easily conjure up an image of the barons of the ruling party clustered around the long table in Fortress Freedom House discussing the best tactics to repel a perceived assault on their political demesne, an assault infuriatingly masked as a gift offering of toilet bowls, no less.
It will be recalled that this latest untimely political outburst had its origin in a human tragedy: the death by drowning of little Tenesha de Souza in a pit latrine at Santa Rosa Primary School. In the immediate aftermath of that unthinkable accident, Minister Baksh had told this newspaper that the ministry would not be phasing out pit latrines in schools, since these were an internationally accepted means of sanitation disposal. One presumes that he had meant to include the words ‘right away’ in those comments because we reported him as going on to say that it would be done eventually, although it would be costly and would take some years to accomplish. He referred to pit latrines being still in use in many parts of Guyana, especially in those areas where water was not readily available.
It is perfectly true, of course, that it will take time, as the Minister says, to replace pit latrines in all schools, particularly in areas where there is a water problem. However, the immediate question related to what action his ministry was prepared to take in the case of Santa Rosa Primary, which has 700 pupils and actually has two flush toilets installed already which are reserved for teachers.
Where that specific issue was concerned, Minister Baksh gave absolutely no indication that his ministry would at this time be replacing the pit latrines used by pupils at Santa Rosa, and in fact seemed to subsume that school under his general comments about pit latrine replacement.
His remarks inevitably produced a torrent of criticism, and by Monday he was holding an impromptu press conference to backtrack on his previous statements, and say that under the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative Programme (EFA-FTI) Santa Rosa Primary had been one of 15 schools identified to benefit from a part of the project. Each of the beneficiaries would receive $1M, and in Santa Rosa’s case this would be used to build additional classrooms as well as sanitary blocks. The money had already been handed over, he said.
Before Minister Baksh ever addressed the media on Monday, however, the Santa Rosa Primary School Parent Teachers Association had already made a public appeal for assistance to build a sanitary block at the school, and the AFC had responded with an offer of toilet bowls and pipes, among other items. The Minister’s public disclosure about the money available from the EFA-FTI project, therefore, came only after this, while Chairman of the Santa Rosa PTA Mark Atkinson, told this newspaper that the money had only been made available after Tenesha’s death, and that there had been promises before but that the funds had not been handed over. If nothing else, therefore, the AFC appear by their offer to the school to have greased the wheels of the bureaucracy.
However, Mr Atkinson explained to Stabroek News that the money from the project would be insufficient to build the sanitary block as well as extend the school, and they still needed more donations; in addition, they lacked technical skills and would be grateful for assistance in that department. The parents of the pupils in Santa Rosa, of course, don’t care two hoots about politics where this matter is concerned; their only interest is in the safety of their children. Mr Atkinson was quoted as saying: “This is not a political issue. My only concern is for the 700 children at the school… We asked for assistance and if the AFC or anyone comes forward with assistance we would accept it.”
The PTA does not “control the school,” grumbled the Minister in response on Monday, and permission would still have to be obtained. One can only observe that the AFC is not undertaking to provide an entire sanitary block, merely make a donation towards equipping it. So here we have the government discerning a political agenda in some toilet bowls and pipes; all one can say is that this is the stuff of which comedy routines are made elsewhere.
The administration, of course, has now publicly advertised its priorities for the nation, viz, that it will allow nothing to potentially undermine its hold on what it perceives as its electoral base, even when there are humanitarian issues involved. If, for the sake of argument, this had happened in a school in an undisputed PNCR constituency which the PPP had no hope of turning, the government would not have stood in the way of a PNC donation, and in a practical sense, probably could not have done so either. Nowadays, as things stand politically, however, the PPP/C needs the help of the Amerindian vote to get into office, and the Arawak vote in Region One is a major element in that. The government wants to be seen, therefore, as the sole agent capable of conferring benefits on the Amerindians; most donors other than international ones − which will probably have to operate through the government in any case − are looked on with suspicion.
Had the Ministry of Education quietly approved the AFC donation, there probably would have been very little fuss and no political consequences for the government, despite the fact the AFC made public its donation. The reaction of the Minister of Education, however, will have focused the attention of Region One residents on the ruling party’s modus operandi. Furthermore, the ministry could be in for Round Two if the Santa Rosa PTA accepts the AFC donation in the face of an official block. No doubt, the government will try and put pressure on the PTA, or some members of the PTA, not to accept it; if it succeeds, or if it directly withholds permission for the PTA to take it, then it inevitably would have to provide sufficient funds to build the sanitary block. However, the political damage would already have been done.
What it appears the PPP/C has yet to learn is that it has been elected to govern first and foremost.
As such, therefore, humanitarian considerations take precedence over raw power politics.
