Barack Obama and two pints of oil

Nov 03, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

A few months ago, I reminded readers of what Minister Henry Jeffrey had written in a letter in the Stabroek News. This was a few years back when he was Minister of Education. It is necessary to touch on this letter again because it brings into focus the esoteric nature of the human mind.
Minister Jeffrey’s missive had raised the hope of the Guyanese people that the PPP Government was going to change itself and Guyana by discovering enlightened forms of governance that the world, including every PPP leader, presently sees in Obama.
The Minister elaborated on the meaning of governance. He explained that in political theory, the concept of government has given way to governance. Government was a 20th century way of how rulers operate, according to Jeffrey. He went on to state that in today’s complex and fast-changing world, governance is the blueprint that leaders around the world adhere to.
Governance involves the use of stakeholders’ input in the formulation of national policies. It makes use of a two-way system of consultation between government and society. Governance, then, in the eyes of Minister Jeffrey, is the modern practice of government allowing for inclusiveness because of the complex, changing world we live in.
Minister Jeffrey then got entangled in a problem with me and Dr. Daniel Kumar from UG. We asked him to rethink the Ministry’s placement of a child that lived near to West Ruimveldt School but was sent miles away to another school and her single parent couldn’t afford the transport cost. He refused and we asked the Ombudsman to intervene. After a lapse of time, we pressed the Ombudsman who told us he cannot do anything because he is still to hear the side of the Ministry of Education.
That position was put in a letter in the Stabroek News by Minister Jeffrey in which he openly proclaimed that school placement was a random process.
It was one of the few times in my long career as a human rights activist that I was irrationally upset. How could school placement be a random process? Nothing in the social sphere is random. You can leave your home and on your bridge death comes from a drunken driver but there is nothing random about that. The driver was not supposed to be drinking and driving.
I called upon President Jagdeo to remove Minister Jeffrey from the Government in a letter to the press because of that incredible stance. But Guyana remains perhaps the only country in the world (yes, I stand by that statement) where high officials do not face sanction from their superiors.
So what is the point? I referred earlier to the esoteric nature of the human mind. How could a Minister, who defined what governance is, refuse to listen to two UG lecturers who had a genuine case of human rights denial of a small child? Was that governance?
Now we have another case of the esoteric mind. The leading lights in the PPP and the Government of Guyana have come out in support of Barack Obama. This is strange, mysterious and illogical. You would think that PPP leaders would find Mc Cain’s style similar to how they run Guyana.
Ask any high school child in any part of the world how Obama comes across to him or her and that kid would tell you that he appears as a unique human who wants to heal the divisions in America, believes in government helping the poorer and middle classes in America, wants to change the style of big government that does not listen to the American people and seeks to develop a form of government in which the voices of the American people would be listened to.
How could the leaders in the Guyana Government support Obama when they are millions of miles away from what this giant of a man stands for? Why don’t they emulate Obama?
Never before, not even when the economy had collapsed in the eighties, are the poorer classes so desperate about existing in Guyana.
I have a relative who works with the public sector for $35,000 a month. He has a wife and two children. He pays $7000 for electricity, a fixed rate of $2200 for water and sewerage, and his house rent is $10,000 monthly. His corporation is a huge earner because of the nature of its business.
Two years ago, his Christmas bonus from the boys the PPP appointed to run the place where he works consisted of the following; two pints of oil, two pints of rice, two pounds of sugar, two pounds of flour, three packets of Milo and a box of mosquito coils.

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