Dear Editor,
Last Thursday Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo sought to mislead the nation when he said the compensation the government will award to the victims of the Mahdia dormitory fire is not final. How can it not be final when the agreement the families have been asked to sign absolves the government from future liability relating to any death and/or injury resulting from the fire? This agreement must also be seen as setting up the Commission of Inquiry not to recommend compensation to the victims beyond what has been paid by the government.
$5 million to each family whose child perished in that fire in an eye-pass. $3 million to each family whose child was injured as a result of the fire is also an eye-pass. Accidents do not happen, they are caused. Where the government, whose custody these children’s lives were placed, ignored previous warnings that these dormitories are unsafe, they must take full responsibility for the children’s injuries, death and trauma. Jagdeo should also be ashamed to tell this nation the victims’ families reached out to the government for help when it should have been the other way around.
I do not know what yardstick was used to arrive at the compensation package but suffice to say, based on my review as a trade unionist, the sum is an eye-pass and unacceptable! 20 students and one toddler lost their lives as a result of the government’s recklessness and poor safety standards. Several children have also suffered injuries as a result of. The average age of the children is 14. The average life expectancy in Guyana is 68 years. The 20 children who perished in the fire had they lived, they would have been absorbed into the workforce from an average age of 18-60. This means each child would have contributed to Guyana’s development at least 42 years of his/her life.
At this year’s government minimum wage/salary of $80,000.00 per month, each child would have cumulatively earned $40,320,000.00 throughout his/her working life (i.e. 504 months x $80,000.00.) Catering for NIS pension, of which each would have been entitled to at age 60, and old age pension from 60 years, the following holds true: – At the present NIS minimum pension rate of $35,000.00 per month, in the eight years that child would have cumulatively received at least $ 3,360,000 (i.e. 96 months x $35,000). At the present Old Age pension rate of $33,000.00 per month, payable at 65, accumulatively each person would have received $1,188,000.00 (i.e. 36 months x $33,000).
The above represents a minimum compensatory value at today’s rate. These figures do not acknowledge the movement in income and benefits that will happen throughout the child’s lifetime. Further, each parent’s financial responsibility, for each child to the age where they were placed in government’s care that resulted in their horrific death, would have been more than $5 million or $3 million. Looking at the paltry compensation the government believes the families deserve in real terms this is a great devaluing of the life of each person. The Jagdeo/Ali regime thinks the lives of fellow Guyanese in the hinterland are cheap.
I ask Bharrat Jagdeo, Irfaan Ali and the other ministers who made the decision to pay out this paltry sum, whether they would have accepted this insulting package had their daughter or son died under similar circumstances whilst in government’s care? $3 million and $5 million must be considered insults to the parents whose children’s dreams were shattered not by their errors but by the government that has failed them. The Jagdeo/Ali regime must return to the drawing board and fix it!
Sincerely,
Lincoln Lewis
