The Karan Singh affair: Lessons to be learnt

Apr 01, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In this life, the most extreme probability or unbelievable possibility lurks around the corner. Life brings the impossible with it. When you think you have seen it all, there comes another impossibility.
I would never ever have imagined that Benazir Bhutto’s husband would have become the President of Pakistan. It cannot get more surprising that that. The evidence of corruption against him was enough to fill the three main rivers of Guyana. But circumstances beyond the control of us, humans, conspired to make him the President of his country.
Who would have believed that Karan Singh would have been fired by the Government of Guyana? The first lesson to learn from the Karan Singh affair is that life has vagaries that no one can see; they just unfold upon us. We should go about our lives with the understanding that a king can lose his throne with the flick of a finger and a crapaud can take his place. Such is the unforeseen forces that we, mortals have no control over. Arrogant bosses who mistreat their employees may find one day that a humiliated member of his/her staff has become a politically powerful person that controls the destiny of a nation. One of the lessons to be learnt from the Singh controversy is a philosophical one – everything in life is fleeting.
The dismissal of Karan Singh will arouse the curiosity of most citizens of Georgetown. Mr. Singh came across as a person with a high level of political protection. He acted as if he was one of Guyana’s untouchables. Indeed he was. Out of this came a management style was that oligarchic to say the least.
As a commentator on public affairs, I received a large number of complaints from serving and dismissed employees of GWI. It appeared from the statistics, that Mr. Singh had terminated a large percentage of the staff that he met when he took over the water sector for the second time.
I approached him on one of these dismissals. It was a heart breaking case. Last November, just 12 days before a GWI employed attained 35 years of service, he was dismissed on the allegation of one of his co-workers that he took money to do a job. This was no way to treat a worker who had spent 35 years cleaning the feces of Georgetown.
I pleaded with Mr. Singh for a suspension. This man had lost all monies that he would have received at retirement age. Mr. Singh was unmoved. He left the country the next day, and I went to the Human Resource people and begged them. He was taken back. Then four days later was again released. I guess you know why.
What are the political lessons to be learnt from the Karan Singh imbroglio? Two contentions surrounded the return to Singh at the water sector. First, the international lending agencies were not enamoured. When he became CEO again, these organisations issued a guarded statement that when read carefully didn’t make Singh look good. The second nagging question was why Singh and not another person, preferably an engineer? One can argue that Singh was a political choice. Herein lies the difference with the Burnham regime and the present administration. I lived under both Presidents; Burnham and Hoyte. Let us leave out Hoyte.
It is foolish on the part of any human being to think that a winning party isn’t going to decorate the State with its own party personnel. This is practical politics. All winners do it, including Barack Obama. The difference with Burnham and Mr. Jagdeo is that if you didn’t perform, Burnham crucified you. Burnham’s policy was that you had to work for him and if you were not doing that then he didn’t want you around.
Burnham went to President’s College himself when it was being built to fire a divisional manager because he was incompetent.
The dilemma with the present government is that the party untouchables go in two directions. One is arrogance. They treat the Guyanese people with scorn and contempt and they know media exposure will not harm them because their political bosses do not want to hear what the private media have to say about the PPP Government. The other path is one of corruption. These powerful second-tier oligarchs feel that their untouchable status allows them to commit financial and sexual perversities, and the rulers will dismiss the exposure as anti-government ranting by PPP haters including the private media Remember Mr. Jagdeo referred to the private media as the new opposition. Is the Karan Singh dismissal the beginning of a fresh wind? Sorry! I’m a pessimist!

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The Karan Singh affair: Lessons to be learnt

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