Dear Editor,
I am thinking about political governance in this country, and I came to an uncomfortable conclusion. It is a place not liked.
The thought was that if President Granger is subtracted from the governance mix, then what remains? What remains to encourage, to comfort, and to inspire? Who are left to lift to a different level? Or simply to maintain precious goodwill invested and grasped? Who?
Due recognition is extended to a few ministers, the strivers and deliverers, who function to an appreciable degree. Public Infrastructure and Social Protection political heads have earned a place above the middle. Also, there are constructive developments at the Citizenship (immigration) and Public Security (crime control and resolution) ministries. Disagreements are sure to come from the identification of Public Security for praise. I counter that, while criminal activity are at unacceptably high levels, there is the solace these days of apprehensions and solutions. These portfolios are the lights that attract. Once again, 90:10 realities are reemphasized and justified.
In the meantime, Natural Resources is under the microscope and will remain so for a long time; missteps and mistakes must be guarded against; transparency and cleanliness have to be more than watchwords, sacred words are more like it. The overseeing minister has his every step and word and deed peered into, and critically. I believe that he is up to the task.
On the other hand, there are places where developments are at a virtual standstill: 1) lessons teach of the exploitation of the young and the poor; 2) business is the same way in the doing –plenty paper, plenty time, and plenty appearances. Doing business in Guyana has all the earmarks of a crime scene tape: Do not enter! Further, looking across portfolios and political personnel, there is at different times and in different places, an absence of management skills, and a professional corporate mentality. I am a firm believer that the tenets and practices that are part of successful businesses could have a powerful place, if properly, conscientiously, and consistently applied, in the realm of political governance.
Editor, please take a look: there are shareholders (voters); stakeholders (partners); ethical codes (clean governance); watchdogs or checks and balances (boards and authorities); documented policies and guiding principles (constitution); and profits and dividends (quality services and quality of life returns). These are the elements that when recognized and adhered to faithfully separate top tier corporate management from the also-rans; the same can be said for political governance, if studiously implemented and followed.
However, rather than engage in the self-education of looking and listening and learning (and then instituting), some of the heads have already squandered scarce goodwill, through resorting to the familiar and the characteristic. There is resistance to commit to the self-sacrifice to remake self to serve and to serve well. It shows. There is too much of the superficial, the artificial of lip service to things that are meaningful to citizens. This, too, is revealed.
Thus, this empty chatter about servant-leaders is no more than that: empty chatter. This is the latest Guyanese myth; observed merely as an occasional forced bow to political correctness, and in a half-hearted gesture to protocol and a prowling prying media. In other words, the servant-leader in Guyana has come to represent the duress of a forced march, while burdened by excess baggage.
For I believe that, at the individual and private cores, there is impatience, contempt, and disregard coupled to disgust, with the demands from, expectations of, and practices associated with a genuine servant-leader. Recall the jarring instances from the last year that became public. If these are the unguarded, unthinking, and uncaring public utterances and postures, then the sharper private ones are best left to the imagination. The verbal escapades, replete with transcendent condescending scorn are but a repetition of the last decade(s), and a return to the real roots. Thus, a farce unfolds. Goodwill withers.
Editor, I assert that when His Excellency is extracted from the equation, and the few stalwart contributors accounted for, there is not much left that is related to servant-leadership. Further, when this is positioned adjacent to performance, it is clear that unrepentant mentalities, unreconstructed cores, and an intransigent devotion to unacceptable methodologies flourish out of sight, and are prejudicial to the public.
The leader should be cognizant of his special place where goodwill is concerned. He ought to be discerning, too, of the vast void below.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
