President Jagdeo discovers a priceless political value

Sep 14, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Speaking in Barbados to the media after the Caricom Heads agreed to endorse the EPA in Bridgetown last Wednesday, President Jagdeo said that the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) that mapped out the final document with the European Community is a technical team and from what he has seen they are engaged in politics by lobbying for the signing of the agreement.

If one is to interpret that statement, Mr. Jagdeo believes technical work should not be made to serve political purposes.

The Guyanese President is of the conceptualization that professional people working for the state should confine themselves to their technical task. For him, it is not within the jurisdiction of the CRNM to be lobbying in support of signing the EPA.

That is a political endeavour best left to politicians and governments. He thinks the CRNM people have gone into the area of politics when they called for Caricom to sign.

Mr. Jagdeo may not be a 100 percent right in this particular instance, but his theoretical understanding of the separation of scientific/technical work for the state by scholars and academics employed by government from political engagements is supported by both philosophy and historical evidence.

The question one has to ask Mr. Jagdeo is if as President of Guyana, his Government recognizes that demarcation line. The answer is no.

On the contrary, the line between politics and public service occupation continues to be blurred as it was under Dr. Jagan’s premiership – 1957 to 1964; President Burnham – 1964-1985; President Jagdeo from 1999 onwards. It is the violation of this sacred principle in politics that has led to Guyana’s permanent instability.

In both Jagan and Burnham, their position was informed by the embrace of socialist doctrine and their contempt for the separation of powers and as a foundation value in liberal democracy. Mr. Jagdeo situates his framework in the identical mode of Forbes Burnham.

When I saw Mr. Jagdeo on television, insinuating that the technical personnel in the CRNM were engaged in political behaviour, it made me further cynical about Mr. Jagdeo’s presidency and more pessimistic about Guyana’s future. In all honesty, Mr. Jagdeo should be the last person to criticize the politicization of technical work.

I am typing this article on the very day that the police announced that the gun that was found on “Skinny” when he was killed was used in the Lindo Creek massacre.

That incident took place when “Skinny” was in jail. But the police had an explanation which they were happy to include in their press release.

According to the police, when “Skinny” escaped and rejoined the killing machine of “Fine Man”, the gang gave him one of the guns that were used to kill the miners.

Quite a substantial percentage of the Guyanese adult population believes that the story of the ballistics evidence of the Guyana Police Force is a sad case of technical work being sacrificed on the altar of politics.

It was under Mr. Jagdeo’s presidency, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana was a candidate for the PPP in two successive national elections. No Caricom leader would permit that.

Such a situation would never exist in any Caricom country. It is under Mr. Jagdeo’s presidency that three PPP leaders are Permanent Secretaries.

This bastardization of the great Westminster convention of the neutrality of the civil service is shamelessly practiced in Guyana today as it was under Premier Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham.

It was President Desmond Hoyte who tried to recapture that doctrine that the British imparted to the Third World after independence was granted.

In Mr. Jagdeo’s Government, the switch from PNC personnel to PPP personnel in the civil service, the wider public sector and the para-statals continues unabated.

Mr. Burnham filled the public sector with PNC stooges, PNC supporters and PNC members. It was based on his belief that the party in power should dominate the entire state sector.

We have today the same game, only the names and party affiliation have changed. Mr. Jagdeo chose a foreign forum to express his disgust at the political partisanship of the technical servants of the state.

Had he delivered that observation to the local media, someone in the audience would have asked him to comment on at least three departures from what the President believes in. One – what was a senior civil servant doing at the PPP Congress as the returning officer for the voting?

Two – why were civil servants invited to attend that very congress? Three – what happened at the GRA when a technical person was bypassed for a job she acted in for two years?

Well, thank God, President Jagdeo has finally agreed to separate professional state jobs from party politics. Has he?

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