When a government deliberately refuses to listen to the voice of its people it had better be on solid ground, e.g. protecting the rights of some minority group. I shall argue here that the decision by the present government to substantially increase its own salaries is devoid of political morality or savvy.
In these circumstances, if the errant government has been long in office, the people should put its early removal high on their agenda. If it is still young, as is the present one, the people must stand their ground in the hope that the government will change its ways and come to realise that the vox populi is not to be trifled with.
Notwithstanding its quite fuzzy and extremely problematic explanations, it is clear that inherent in the decision to pay itself salary increases far above those of its employees, who, for the most part, are just inches away from the bread-line, is an abundant self-interest. (That is money I paid to one of my attorneys that works for me when I was in private practice. Why should I be working for that? SN 7/10/2015).
On this issue, those of the regime’s cheer-leaders who would have us believe that to criticise is to be unfair to a new, inexperienced, government do not now have a leg to stand on. The only whiff of inexperience has been the unnecessarily brazen statement by the Minister of State Joe Harmon to the effect that: ‘I’m not going to make any apologies whatsoever for ministers getting an increase in salaries, they deserve it’ (SN 7/10/2015). In modern politics perhaps the only thing one should not be prepared to apologise for to a general democratic audience is the fact of being born!
When the government’s previous effort to introduce hefty salary increases was first raised and criticised by the PPP/C, after much obfuscation, the proposal was put aside because of a general public denunciation. After all, at the last general election the PPP/C showed that it had nearly as many supporters as the government and many of the latter’s people made their displeasure known. In normal circumstances politicians can only disrespect this kind of public opinion at their peril, yet within only a few weeks the regime has gone ahead!
‘But this is Guyana’ and it may well be that given time and the ethnic nature of our political allegiances, the APNU-AFC coalition government assessed that the public outrage can be weathered as when it comes to the crunch they will be able to rally their support base. The apparent success of former president Bharrat Jagdeo in corralling traditional PPP/C supporters during the last election suggests that the coalition government may well have a point!
Not surprisingly, it appears to me that very early on the most morally connected coalition partner, the WPA, subtly attempted to disassociate itself from a decision that is likely to hurt it more than all the others (Government’s first duty is to serve the people not self (SN 8/10/2015).
Very much related to this issue is how the government’s decision is putting real pressure on many of its trade union well-wishers to try to spin credible responses. With forms of dubious reasoning, some are telling us that they are not against the ministerial increases but substantial increases should be given to everyone! But since such large increases for public servants (maybe for the entire work-force who also voted and there is minimum wage legislation that can mandate the increase), are unaffordable and would be inflationary, such a position is, to say the least, disingenuous.
As stated above, what is at stake should be sufficiently important if public opinion of this sort are to be given a second place. So let us go to the story told by the Minister of State Joe Harmon to the press (SN 7/10/2015).
He claimed that he and his colleagues ‘deserve’ the substantial increases. What can he possibly mean by this? Do they deserve them because of their achievements since coming to government? For me, apart from spending some money to clean up Georgetown, which the previous regime misguidedly and deliberately starved of resources, what has this regime done to deserve any increase in pay?
The truth is that it has not been in office sufficiently long to have to face such an assessment. Of course, if Mr. Harmon disputes this he should tabulate these accomplishments and share them so that the nation can better comprehend the salary increases. Such a contribution could also provide a template for those involved in national wage negotiations!
But the minister also has a more ethical understanding of deserving. He told us, ‘if you look at the Cabinet you will find people of quality are there’. This suggests that it is this undefined quality that he wishes to compensate and thus raises the question as to the nature of the quality he and his colleagues believe they have that is worth more than those in the previous cabinet and the ordinary public servants who only received about a 5% as opposed to the cabinet’s 50% increases.
Experience and academic qualifications can be considered as making one person more deserving in the job situation, but in this regard is the present cabinet, if at all, so much more academically qualified and experienced than public servants or the previous PPP/C cabinet? I think not.
But perhaps they have identified in themselves a deeper kind of moral quality that is far and above that of the normal public servant and members of the previous regime.
For example, Mr. Harmon claimed, ‘You cannot have a situation like in the PPP where they were prepared to accept low salaries because they were thieving money all over the place. We are not going to do that, our ministers will have to sign to a code of conduct, a code of service which requires them to act at a different level and so we have to pay people well if you want them to perform.’
I shall not bother with the fact that so far the actual evidence that there was theft is pretty slim – that process needs time to properly fructify. But more importantly, even if we wish to accept in advance the predicted rectitude of the present cabinet if they are paid more, to suggest that an important reason those associated with the PPP were ‘thieving money all over the place’ was partly because their salaries were too low raises an entire range of issues, a few of which will be addressed later, about the nature of public service. More interestingly it is a mitigating argument in the PPP/C’s favour that the minister could not possibly have intended!
