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In this the Christmas season it would have been nice to say that all is well. Even if people could have said that things are getting better that would have been a good thing. Sadly, that cannot be said at this time.
There has been an eight per cent increase in salaries and wages; there has been substantial increases in wages and salaries for certain categories of workers. Some people would smile. Then they would have to wait until the end of January to smile even further. Their base salary has gone up, in some cases significantly.
Doctors and nurses are going to be better paid. The public servants must keep waiting. The Chancellor and the Chief Justice cannot smile because despite acting for decades they are not being confirmed.
Judges and magistrates cannot protest. It would seem that such a clause is written in their terms of work.
The cynics among us would say that the courts comprise many Afro Guyanese. The result is that the government is not looking in that direction, it is doing so in the same way that it is not looking in the same direction of the public servants.
Ordinary nurses are now being paid more than some teachers and surely, public servants. It could be that the government is looking at the scale of the payout. The public service is about twice the size of the medical institution. Any increased payout would take a chunk out of the public treasury.
Yet when one looks at the sugar workers, they are taking a large bite out of the public treasury. President Irfaan Ali made a big song and dance that the increased payout to the medical personnel would attract a further $1.5 billion from the treasury.
Even if the public service payroll should increase by $4 billion, that sum would in no way match what is being pumped into sugar. But, the powers know best.
Last week when the world observed anti-corruption day there were statements across the divide. The foreign diplomats issued a statement that noted the extensive legislation that the government has in place.
Yet they also asked the government to stamp out corruption. The message is clear. Although there is legislation, there is still rampant corruption in Guyana and not much is being done to stamp it out.
The political opposition says that the government is making corruption a normal way of life in Guyana. President Irfaan Ali insists that his government is going to be transparent. If there is transparency, then certainly corruption would be exposed. But is there transparency?
Last week Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo spoke about auctioning off some oil blocks. There was no consultation leading to the conditions under which the blocks would be auctioned. The result is that there is the accusation that some people close to the PPP would win those blocks.
Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde highlighted another undercover operation. He said that the press reported that the government plans to award a contract for the construction of a gas plant at a cost of more than US$1 billion. He said that the government claimed that the company is based in Texas.
However, Senior Counsel Forde said that on examination, he found that the company is a Venezuelan company. He said that the announcement by the government brings into question, the transparency and the sincerity of the government.
The money is the people’s money but they are not being told, according to Forde, how their money is being spent.
That is only a part of the transparency bubble. Political opposition members now say that the government is dismantling all the organisations designed to guard against corruption. The Special Organised Crime Unit—SOCU—is being deemed a tool of the government. They say that SOCU is now being used for witch hunt.
How else can one explain that this upright organization would arrest a lawyer for advising her client? Things go further. Attorney at law Nigel Hughes reported on Monday that the officers at the law enforcement body are practising deceit. They are hiding from the bailiff because they do not want to be served with a legal notice.
More worrying is their arrest and charge of the Chief Scrutineer of the People’s National Congress Reform, Carol Joseph.
Joseph moved to the courts to challenge the conditions for the local government elections.
As soon as the action was filed the government moved to postpone the elections. Surely it did not want to be challenged. But the fallout was that it moved to charge Joseph for something they claimed she did in 2016. The opposition calls the SOCU action an act of political harassment.
They say that the charges had something to do with paying out money. For that to have happened there would have had to be three signatories to the requisition and to sign the cheque. Abel Seetaram was the board chairman. He would have had to sign out the account. He would have also had to sign the cheque.
He is now a member of the PPP. Coincidentally, he has not been charged. One Guyana?
How about the stymieing of the Public Accounts Committee? Up until April any three members constituted a quorum. The body comprises five members of the government and four from the opposition. The chairman also had to come from the opposition.
Now the government insists that there must be two government members for a quorum to be constituted. Meetings are often cancelled leaving the opposition members to conclude that the government does not want its accounts to be examined.
Is there something to hide?
