Dear Editor,
That fifty per cent pay increase is bad. It smells bad, it tastes terrible, and it does not go down easily. It is untimely and unsightly. Everything about it is bad and wrong.
The percentage itself is horrendously unseemly, and smacks of the self-serving. In the early days of change of government, I wrote about the crying need for sacrifice. Well, a 50% increase is a far cry from any semblance of self-sacrifice. It is a long unsettling step in the wrong direction. If the old departed crew had done this, it would have been castigated and flayed endlessly, and rightfully so. I have looked at this from many angles, and rationalization eludes.
Apparently, it also, eludes many of the rank and file, who supported those who are no longer new, but now seasoned incumbents (at least in this respect). Unsurprisingly, the questions flew with heat and acidity: So much? So early? What about us? What about us first? And how can they? And on and on….
Citizens are unhappy, even unnerved by this development. I was taken aback by the torrent and temperature of some of the comments shared. Observers do not like this one bit; they can find nothing to cheer, or defend.
Now, with this year winding down, the expectant (and dismayed) supporter-voter-citizen is already watching and waiting with an eye for their corresponding piece of the pie. Already, I have heard talk of close interest in, and scrutiny of, the 2016 budget. People have raced that far ahead, are that sensitive, and that wise. What will be there for me is the question, and it had better be good. These same workers have had a decades-long sour stomach distended by the severe selfishness of the departed. They are neither ready nor conditioned nor accepting of this, for more of the same that went before.
To make matters more embarrassing, the opposition, sensing an opportunity, is beginning to murmur about passing up on the 20% bounty. This makes keen political sense, provides endless fodder for criticisms, and emblematizes a final insult to an unnecessary injury.
I do hope that the government will listen closely to the disbelief and muted outrage unleashed. I trust that it will respond accordingly, notwithstanding Lt Col Harmon’s preemptive “no apologies” defence, which is in and of itself offensive, when the local context is probed. It is offensive to those who toiled in jaded anonymity and the gritty periphery of poverty for a virtual eternity. Say it ain’t so, Joe!
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
