The people have a better government than they deserve

Aug 16, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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It is said that the people get the government they deserve. This statement is a falsehood. The government is much better than the people they serve. If governments were to do what the people wanted them to do, the political landscape would be a wasteland.
In Guyana, the people get better governments than they deserve. If, for example, you listen to what some of the supporters of the new government say, you will recognize that the government is better – not by too far – than those supporters.
There is a view out there amongst some supporters of APNU+AFC that the government should rid itself of all those persons who would have worked at a senior level within the PPPC administration. It does not matter that those persons were not political appointees or were not part of the ruling party. So long as they would have served at a senior level within the PPPC, their heads were and are still being called for.
There is a great deal of venom out there. You see and read comments on social media and within the newspaper blogs about getting rid of this and that person because of their association with the government of the PPPC.
The current government has gotten rid of many persons from the previous administration. Persons were removed from their jobs when the government came in. Others were pushed out. The contracts of others were not renewed. Some persons resigned because they knew they were not wanted.
The new government came in with a mission to effect widespread change in personnel and it has. A number of its supporters have been given jobs and have replaced dismissed persons. This has not satisfied those who want to see a clean sweep of the old personnel. The government remains under great pressure to continue to effect change.
There are supporters of the government who want persons removed and jailed. This is where the forensic audits come in. It was expected that the audits would establish massive corruption under the PPP and become the basis for not only discrediting the opposition, but also for forming the basis for criminal charges.
This unfortunately has not happened and, therefore, the new call from within the supporters of the ruling party is for persons to be axed. It does not matter whether they did right or wrong, their heads are being called for. The headhunters outside of the government are not asking whether there is sufficient enough basis for dismissing persons. They are simply using any and every reason in the audits to make a case for dismissals.
The government does not really need forensic audits to remove persons. It can simply concoct any reason to dismiss persons. It can even be inconsistent in how it deals with the audits. The government is not being urged to be fair.
The headhunters within their supporters want it to be fair. The government is being asked to be expedient, politically expedient. The danger of this is that by giving in to the base instincts of those who are calling for more heads to roll, the government is effectively destroying professionalism within the public service.
At the same time, it is politicizing the public sector by having to put so many of its supporters in top government positions at such a rapid rate and in such a short period of time.
This is the main reason why people feel that nothing much is happening within the government. Nothing much is happening because there are too many new persons feeling their way around government. It is not that these persons are not competent. It is just that they simply lack the experience. This is happening because the government is being pushed by its supporters to effect widespread changes.
Young people are not getting the opportunities they deserve. The government is bringing persons out of retirement and handing them top jobs. There are persons in their sixties who are being brought out of retirement and given top jobs, when there are able and capable young persons who can do the job but are being bypassed.
The media seem to have grown accustomed to veterans and retirees taking over. They have stopped giving the ages of the appointees. These changes are deemed, by the headhunters, as better than having to allow persons within the system to be promoted because of the fear that some person who worked under the previous government may qualify for such promotion.
Professionals ran from the Burnham regime because of the politicization of the public service. They knew that once they did not become political, they stood little chance of rising to the top on merit. They opted to leave Guyana, and this is what contributed to the brain drain. Guyana has never recovered from that situation.
The present regime has to resist the temptation of giving in to the demands of those outside of the government who want to see anyone associated with the PPP be pushed out of the public sector.
The government has to remain better than those who are pressing it to effect changes, because if those pressures are heeded, it will destroy the government system and politicize and militarize it further.

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