Dear Editor,
It has come to our attention that the Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee said “an air of uncertainty currently looms over the Home Affairs Ministry and… workers’ job security is in limbo” as said on NCN. This is owing to the proposed budget cuts by the opposition, mainly the AFC. The majority opposition rationalized the 2012 Budget by some $20 billion and not one job was lost.
So what is all this hysteria about? There goes the PPP propaganda machine again disseminating untruths and distortions. Does the Minister not realize that he has no credibility left to speak publicly? Does he not realize that people including their own supporters are tired of the lies? Does the Minister not realize that he lacks the leadership skills to lead the security forces? Does he not realize that the more he opens his mouth to speak the more incompetent he looks?
The AFC has said that it has lost confidence in the office-holder who leads the Ministry of Home Affairs and as a result of this loss of confidence it is expected that they will interrogate the spending in that ministry the most.
During this interrogation of the numbers, we were advised by the interrogators that they found the Minister took the liberty of increasing the number of contract workers from 115 persons to 168 persons despite a serious warning from the opposition a year ago not to do so. Does he not realize that the opposition will not be bullied by the minority PPP regime? Maybe, if the Minister does the honourable thing and resigns, the impending budget cuts will be suspended.
Well this Minister has really got some brass to ignore the majority in Parliament especially when he is in the untenable situation of persona non grata in the books of the majority in Parliament. Further the majority in Parliament could not have been clearer during the 2012 debates to indicate their position on the discrimination against public servants by this Minister and several others in the government, including the OP in favour of contract workers, many of whom are unqualified and inexperienced PPP appointees. We urge the regime to stop such practices and allow the Public Service Commission to do its job and maintain a professional public service.
The people want a professional public service with more public servants with full security of tenure and not unqualified PPP cronies. So any rational minister would understand that there is justification to slice the Budget for the Ministry of Home Affairs since the present Minister did not get it! If the Minister checks the recommendations for rationalization, only the secretariat of the Minister was rationalized, not personnel from the Police Force, not the Fire Service, not the Prison Service, or for that matter, any other personnel within the Ministry of Home Affairs. There is a clear logic to the rationalization if he cares to apply himself to the issue rather than parade his usual propaganda, untruths and distortions publicly on the matter.
It is time President Ramotar appointed a competent Minister of Home Affairs, brought a halt to the expansion of the army of unqualified contract workers and rebuilt and professionalized the public service.
It is our hope that good sense will prevail ‒ or is this the season where the minority bullies the majority?
Yours faithfully,
Asquith Rose
Harish S Singh
