Dear Editor,
Six decades ago, a learned judge in a written decision described a PPP activist as a person of meagre moral fibre. Today, this description sits well for the scores of men and women in control. We are in a situation today where our Government thrives on propaganda techniques and the soft, sweet sounding phrases of our Head of State and Commander-in-Chief. Here in Guyana, because the Government has frustrated meetings of the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament, we have no idea of the millions being frittered away. In the meantime with usual fanfare, announcements are made for the building of schools, bridges, hospitals, roads, etc., with dubious tender processing.
We recall the fiasco of inferior building materials and incomplete works at Kato. The contractor was banned but yet was awarded the contract for works at the North Ruimveldt Multilateral School. This is just the tip of the iceberg and citizens are not allowed to hear the real story beyond the pious pronouncement of certain ministers and with so many things happening, these and other similar matters are swept under the carpet. So we build health centres, hospitals, schools and there is little evidence that we are vigorously proceeding with the programme to provide adequately trained personnel to man and maintain these facilities. So we are preparing the groundwork to bring in persons alien to our culture to teach and provide medical services.
There is also the debauchery of sections of our security forces of letting loose on the public untrained and therefore ill-prepared personnel. But sweeping matters under the carpet is the new modus operandi. Last week the President of the Guyana Public Service Union, on the occasion of the United Nations Public Service Day, painfully alluded to the principles and practices of our Public Service and referred to Conventions including ILO Conventions ratified by Guyana but breached with impunity by the Government. Among the Conventions subscribed and ratified by the Government of Guyana is Article 38G which states the integrity of the Public Service is guaranteed. No public officer shall be required to execute or condone irregular acts on the basis of higher orders. More importantly, the senior public servant should at least notionally not be openly or even tacitly aligned to a political party.
Here we have the head of a key Ministry, that is, Home Affairs going off to China on a training course designed specifically for PPP members. The fact that her visa was canceled and her mobile phone seized by the Americans speaks volume, yet we are still to get a plausible explanation from the powers that be. The question the public is entitled to have answered is, does our Head of State or Minister of Home Affairs support this dual role or is it a duplicity of a very Senior Public Officer? Mind you, Editor, hour by hour, day by day we are assailed by asseverations about accountability and transparency.
Later this week, I will seek answers to other questions, seeking answers for no other reason that like the majority of decent citizens, we’d like to set Guyana on the road to glory and not damnation. I write to help avoid the spread of a culture of cowardly silence and unconcern by some folks. This perhaps is a dangerous situation as it allows demonic forces to eat away the freedom won by many of our ancestors. Editor, let us continue to speak up so that we can shake and topple the ramparts of arrogance, corruption and their monolithic doctrine evident in our Guyana today.
Sincerely,
Hamilton Green
Elder
