Since assuming office, the David Granger-led coalition government has been guilty of sending a series of mixed signals to the population, specifically, his ministers and other party functionaries appear to be making several administrative false steps and public relations blunders, requiring the subsequent intervention of the President to assuage the ire of the populace and countervail whatever crisis was looming.
The seeming regularity with which these events are occurring has led to Mr Granger assuming a perhaps unintended role of Apologist-in-Chief for the coalition government, being forced to step into the limelight ever so often to explain here, cajole there, or reverse some decision taken apparently without his consent or being informed.
Over a year ago, our new leaders took the reins of power promising manifesto-style progress and development that offers each citizen a “fair share” of our resources. Then, scarcely several months into their assumption of office, we heard that the government was mulling a salary increase for ministers and top functionaries. Then we were told by the government that this information was untrue. Then the government went ahead and increased their own salaries anyway, with Minister Joe Harmon’s infamous boast that he pays lawyers within his private legal practice significantly more than ministers within the government were being paid and as such was “unapologetic” towards those critical of the government’s decision to raise their own salaries ahead of any real adjustment to the wages and salaries in the public sector, becoming the defining incident of the administration’s willingness to flip-flop on their promises to the electorate prior to assuming office.
Enter David Granger, who as an individual enjoys widespread respect and is considered by many to have very little political baggage: “…We felt that we had to make a sacrifice to get the best quality and we needed to ensure that the standard of living does not suddenly collapse… Some of them are getting a lot less than they have gotten privately and they are trying to ensure that the Cabinet will give a high level of efficiency and we felt that this was the cost of having a Cabinet of persons who are committed to the development of this country…”
Whether people bought the argument or allowed themselves to be placated because the argument was coming from someone held in such high regard is debatable. What might be less so is the amount of political capital that the coalition government and more so its leader is burning up in just over a year after being swept into power on a wave of dissatisfaction with the status quo expressed by the voting public.
If this was a one-off occurrence there might have been no real cause for alarm. However, it has become an unsettlingly regular matter for a governmental gaffe to occur, and then be followed by a series of belligerent or even embarrassingly contradictory pronouncements by various ministers who may not even be the subject minister concerning whatever is the particular issue at hand.
Then finally, and nowadays with predictable certainty, the President belatedly enters the fray with a view to putting the matter to rest, even if temporarily, so that the administration can survive another unnecessary blunder, usually of its own causing.
Which leads us to ask the question, even if rhetorically in this piece, do the ministers exchange notes on a matter before speaking publicly? No one appeared to have swapped notes with Harmon on the salary increase matter, or if they did, he tossed them aside and went before the press to utter his now infamous remarks. We would later learn that Harmon did not pass his notes to the Cabinet with respect to his communications for his China sojourn that would later erupt into a scandal involving his association with Baishanlin, and, perhaps unnecessarily, taint his appointment of Brian Tiwarie as his personal advisor in the months leading up to the China trip on which he was accompanied by Tiwarie.
Because of the intensity of the fallout pertaining to Harmon’s trip to China, his association with Baishanlin, and his appointment of the high profile businessman as his advisor, President Granger moved swiftly in rescinding Tiwarie’s appointment, a move that was also bound to be a public rap on the knuckles for Minister Harmon as Granger also made it clear that he was unaware of the appointment. So severe was the fallout from this chain of events that it claimed an unexpected victim in chairman of the AFC Nigel Hughes, whose sudden (if unaccepted) resignation might have brought an end to this particular chain of events.
The most recent in the chain of seemingly unplanned comments coming out of the mouths of ministers of the government occurred when Finance Minister Winston Jordan stated his intention to restrict international travel to persons who were in default of their indebtedness to the University of Guyana through the Student Loan Programme by effectively blacklisting their names at the airport. This surprising announcement remained unchallenged for a few days before Ministers Carl Greenidge and Winston Felix, neither of them subject ministers for the issue at hand, sought to clarify by insisting that government took no position on any travel restrictions for loan defaulters.
As condemnations continued to swirl the President in his new role as Apologist-in-Chief predictably ended the controversy by citing the illegality of any proposed plan to restrict the free movement of citizens.
“It [unpaid loans] is a problem and as I said I understand the minister’s frustration but banning people from leaving the country… is not provided for in the law,” Granger said.
In the last year alone, this administration has stumbled along a path of seeming confusion, exposing serious internal communication issues, and a modus operandi in governance that is marred by too many instances of flip-flopping.
Indeed, a central problem for this administration is the ability to speak with “one voice” as any organisation knows is integral to it being taken seriously on important issues. This challenge of “speaking with one voice” despite the difficulty it entails should not be replaced with just one voice speaking, essentially muzzling ministers as has been tried in the past.
The administration needs to show leadership that is steady and straightforward and with public pronouncements on important matters measured, and the result of sensible internal deliberations.
The President enjoys considerable political capital and this should be utilised in coordinating within his coalition and then in the Parliament for the good of the electorate.
Indeed, careful coordination and proper communication should be a core priority for this administration. For President Granger, a rethink in how he spends his political capital, currently using it sporadically to put out fires, even Municipal ones, is recommended.
