Dear Editor
My grandfather died in 1953, the year I was born. The PNC formation was after that date. Freddie Kissoon has the wrong Charles Ceres, if his sister is younger than me, unless my grandfather rose from the dead to meet his sister and grandparents. Freddie may, however, be talking about my Bajan Granddad who married my Indian Grandmother “Pigeon” Singh in Leguan. He died before 1948, the year my maternal grandmother died, so again that is highly unlikely.
Freddie, I am from Springlands, Corentyne, Berbice. My mother sold black pudding, souse etc. to raise her children after being deserted by her husband. I was unaware that the PNC has created empowerment based on selling black pudding & souse. Freddie, maybe my father was empowered by Burnham to be a cabinet maker who the records will confirm never worked for or had a contract with the PNC or PPP.
This, Charles P. Ceres was awarded a scholarship after graduating at the top of my class from the University of Guyana in 1974. I paid an annual tuition, like everyone else attending UG at that time of Guyana $108. I attended UG at nights while being employed at the Ministry of Public Works soils laboratory in Kingston. I along with my Indian Guyanese counterparts Messrs. Baldeo and Salim and my classmate at Line Path Government Secondary, Omar Insanally, were all appointed as Guyana Bauxite Company (Guybau) cadets in 1974. I graduated from Queens University in Canada and returned to Guyana in 1979. I moved to Trinidad in 1983 where I lived for 18 months and made enough money to attend graduate school in the US. I graduated from Drexel University in the US, obtained my professional engineering license and returned to Guyana in 1993 after the PPP won the 1992 elections. I exchanged the comforts of Cherry Hill, two cars and home with a swimming pool in New Jersey, US to live in a tenement yard at the corner of Durban Street and Cemetery Road when I returned to Guyana as a single parent with two sons.
My company, Ground Structures Engineering Consultants only provides services to the public sector as sub-contractors. I was empowered by Forbes Burnham to believe in myself as an African person for which I offer no apologies. That belief has created a company with the ability to provide world class services in Geotechnical Engineering, Groundwater Hydrology and Environmental compliance. In fact, the company I founded and built is the only one able to conduct both deterministic and stochastic modeling of environmental fate and transport.
The company I created in 1993 has empowered Guyanese from all ethnicities. GSEC has fully funded the university tuition for several people including Sean Henry, an indigenous Guyanese and Monique Singh an Indian Guyanese woman and my cousin.
I will not respond to claims you have about your dog, cat or bicycle. However, it is distasteful to equate your problems with bicycle parking with that of the African Guyanese condition. No one is allowed to interfere in how I manage my company. I take a similar approach to other professionals and will never tell another professional how to perform their job. I suspect your complaint is more about you than the system and your inability to construe the concept of being a professional. I have no interest in addressing your personal dissatisfaction with the Government of Guyana, either the PPP not renewing your contract at UG or Burnham facilitating your starvation in spite of how seriously you take yourself.
Your hypothesis that “this is the new ideology of an anti-PPP mindset that essentially argues that African Guyanese have been so badly treated that its time they confront the “Indianised” government.” is not borne about by my statement. I do not need you to speak for me. I am not indebted to the PPP or PNC for my success. My success is the consequence of my belief in myself and hard work. I can provide evidence to you of every cent my company has earned, and you can identify all money related to Burnham empowerment.
I suspect that your agenda is intended to indicate to young African people in Guyana that African Guyanese cannot succeed based on hard work and discipline. If you accept that my success as an African Guyanese is totally attributable to my hard work and discipline that will destroy your hypothesis. You are consequently attempting to justify your inadequacies by pinning my success to my long dead grandfather(s) being facilitated by a PNC which did not exist at the time of their demise.
I make no apologies for advancing the position of the African Guyanese part of our population. I think you are better positioned than I am to comment on “Indian Life Matter”, suffice to say that a large proportion of my very close and dear relatives are 100% Indian from my maternal grandmother first marriage to an Indian Man. I consequently have no interest in involving you in a debate. Please feel free to continue your daily diatribe.
Given the facts about my parents and grandparents, I am demanding that you retract all statements related to my grandfather, mother and father. Alternatively, you will either provide the evidence or face the consequences of your slanderous statements. I would further advice Kaieteur News that editorial oversight dictates the publication of established facts only and not wild and false claims by a pseudo researcher, who is still to obtain his dream of post graduate qualifications.
Regards
Charles P Ceres
