OLD PEOPLE RUNNING THINGS IN GUYANA!

Sep 17, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

While we are at it we might as well make the retirement age in the public service seventy-five. A great many retirees, not just from the army, but from all over are being brought out of retirement to replace persons that are being recalled or axed by the new administration.
How dothe young people in the public service feel when they see persons who have long retired and long been out of active service being brought back and handed top jobs within the public service and within the Foreign Service?
How do these young people feel? Many of them would have been in the public service for many years. They would have worked in the expectation that they could be elevated to the top. There may have been persons for example within the local Foreign Service who would have been hoping to be promoted to the position of an ambassador.
How do you think they will feel to learn that someone who has already retired has to be brought back? Is there no confidence in the Foreign Service officers and others serving at the various missions in Guyana? Is there such a dearth of skills that the government has to consistently bring back retirees to work?
If this is the case then we should extend the working careers of all Guyanese and allow them to retire at age seventy-five rather than age fifty five as is now the case for public servants, and age 60 in other parts of the public sector.
We heard a great deal from APNU and the AFC about opposition in this country, about young people not being given opportunities. APNU was very vocal about it. They were claiming that unemployment was a problem. Yet it is the very APNU that instead of offering more opportunities for young people are instead employing retirees.
The talk around town is that “old people run things in this country.” At one time, it was said that Queen’s College was running the country. Now if you are an old soldier, the better. Retirees are running things in Guyana today.
The AFC has in the Ministries its Ministers control tried to give young people a chance and therefore they need to impress upon APNU, the need to do the same.
I am not saying that old soldiers and retirees should not get jobs. But what about the young people? Give them a chance and if no one suitable can be found, then go to the retirees. There used to be a time in some countries where if a retiree had to be reemployed within the civil service, the union that represented the civil servants had to give its approval. I do not know whether that was ever the case in Guyana
There was a logical reason for such thinking. There would have been persons within the civil service who would have an expectation of promotion and if you brought back a retiree you were frustrating that person’s chances of obtaining a promotion. In some cases it was more than just the promotion that was at stake. Someone within the civil service would have been hoping that when his or her turn came to retire, he or she could retire at a higher position and this gain a higher pension.
Then there is the effect the reemployment will have on the morale of the civil service. Civil servants will feel that they are not likely to be promoted and this will affect their attitude to their work.
But what about the young people? What message is being sent to them?
If the government intends to persist with the policy of bringing back retirees to work within the public sector, it should do the right thing and extend the retirement age to seventy-five. In this way, the young people will at least feel that they eventually stand a chance of being promoted from age sixty onward.

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OLD PEOPLE RUNNING THINGS IN GUYANA!

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