Dear Editor,
I have come to recall the late Dr. Yesu Persaud ever since the days before nationalisation of our sugar industry in 1976. Occasionally, the two of us would share his initial investment in TV Broadcast Programmes on Sundays. Accepted then as one of the leading professionals in personnel management in the country – Initiator/Creator of the National Personnel Officers’ Association (NPOA) in 1965, President when it was transformed in 1972 into the Guyana Institute of Management (GIM), whose membership consisted of various professionals of local private and public sector organisations, and who enjoyed international status.
The ‘First Conference of Personnel Officers in Government and Industry’ was convened in March 1965, when then Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Mayor J.O. Smith, addressed the forty one participants on: ‘Personnel Administration Practice in the Public Service of British”. My mentor, Harold Davis (of Bookers Sugar Estates Ltd) spoke on “Personnel Management in Industry”. Not long after, I myself edited a Quarterly Magazine “Developing Management”, which in April 1973 featured as ‘Manager-on-the-spot’, Peter D’Aguiar, then Chairman, Banks DIH. I recall him in his Demico House Office, asserting: “Well I am a firm believer that the workers’ and the ‘owners’ interests are not only compatible but are one and the same. I believe in keeping workers informed as much as possible as to what the company is trying to do, how much it is trying to achieve its objective. I like the worker to be a shareholder”. Sixty years on as a shareholder of DDL I keep searching for that sense of humanity (equality) in its Annual Report.
Once the Human Resources Director of the largest and oldest employer in Guyana (up to 28,000 employees at one stage), I began as one of the wide range of the Cadets who from 1957 were selected to eventually manage/direct: Bookers Sugar Estates, Bookers Stores, Bookers Shipping, Industrial Holdings, Bookers Drag House and Guyana Graphic Newspapers. Today I recall two colleagues alive – Agriculturalists Fritz McLean and Vibert Parvatan, the latter still known for weekly broadcasts. But my closest professional colleague of GuySuCo, and brother, was the late Nowrang Persaud, who became well respected in DDL as Human Resources Director par excellence. Both of us grew out of an organisation developmental environment which acknowledged the human being as the most valuable Commodity (Human Resources of first choice).
Meanwhile, however note the COMMODITY on the cover of DDL’s Annual Report 2023. Further, it is at least puzzling how the Table of Contents on Page 1 and 2 also translate into more products. With my extensive experience within CARICOM, and across several international Agencies, I continue to strive to interpret the PERSPECTIVE on Page 3 as the VISION comparator organisations prefer to articulate, more often accompanied by a MISSION. As a nonagenarian it is not easy to locate an articulate organisation structure. Nor does my immobility allow access to any ‘token gift’ in 2024.
Sincerely,
E. B. John