Latest update March 25th, 2025 7:08 AM

Guyana's largest selling daily and New York's most popular weekly

Latest News

Is anyone observing Guyana, is anyone talking against these injustices?

Jun 08, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,

With reference to some pertinent new items in the mainstream media in Guyana over the last few days on “CLICO sending home more employees”, I will choose to reiterate my previous concerns on the leadership of Ms. Gita Knights.

Ms Knights is the biggest threat, weakness and drain on the future of CLICO and this is nothing personal. The time when Ms Knight should have called it a day has long gone and I am convinced she is being deliberately retained for reasons know only to the powers that be.

In the second half of 2008, key connected people in Guyana were deliberately allowed to withdraw their funds with the full knowledge that the business was about to collapse and I challenge anyone to provide the evidence to prove me wrong. This act was to the detriment of the other investors including our very own National Insurance Scheme (NIS).

The Government is now saddled with the financial burden of refilling this financial hole left by CLICO in the books of NIS over the next 10 years. This is billions of dollars that could have gone otherwise on a youth development programme to reposition our youths away from hopelessness into revenue generative venture. Ms Knights, unfortunately, you karma dictates that you and the entire Duprey outfit will be saddled with this burden for many lives to come.

Reading one newspaper article which cited the quantum of Ms Knight monthly remuneration, it then became crystal clear to me why there is no need for ethics or honour and why it is imperative that the lower level workers must go. Her monthly salary package can pay 45 ordinary employees of CLICO every month.

Thus as the cash runs out in the company, tough choices have to be made, should we let go of one executive or should we let go of 30 people who may have families to feed and no hope or knowledge of what will happen to them next month?

I am not arguing for one or the other. I have spent enough time working with companies in stressful situations to realise if the cash is running out, everyone has to give a little.

Let us say for argument sake, Ms Knight has that special skills set that no one else in Guyana has and she must be retained, then why is the company maintaining the status quo with respect to the salary structure.

The world at CLICO is very different from what it was a year ago and thus Ms Knight should be magnanimous and gave a little to the company that she led into the gutters. The workers are giving up their jobs in the process, so who is bearing the heavier part of the Cross?

Where is the Economic Services Committee of Parliament, where is MP Raphael Trotman, where is the President of Guyana, where is the Bank of Guyana, where are the Unions? We are all sitting by and doing nothing to stop this social apartheid at CLICO where the gap between the management and the workers continues to get wider and wider and the only one who is being called upon to bear the brunt of this mismanagement is the ordinary workers, when the real culprits are the managers.

These are the reasons oppressed people use for a revolution. I recommend all Guyanese to read Hugo Chavez autobiography called from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution by Bart Jones. That book clearly outlined how a few well connect people in Venezuela believed they owned that country and can do anything they wanted, but what they did not know is the impact of people’s power.

Now with the migration outlet to Barbados and other Caribbean countries being closed, the pressure pot will have no way of letting out that steam and ask any housewife what happens to the pressure pot when the cap on top gets clogged. Is any one observing Guyana, is any one listening, is any one talking against these injustices?

Where are the Jaganites of Guyana, who are supposed to be the custodian of the Guyanese consciousness? Why are they not speaking up?

Commodore Gary Best, you are becoming a more and more important man in Guyana as the days go by since some one, some institution has to take that responsibility of becoming the barometer of the Guyanese consciousness. I hope that essential people in Guyana see reason before it is too late.

Sasenarine Singh

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| March, 17th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Groups, schedule announced for One Guyana 3×3 Quest

Groups, schedule announced for One Guyana 3×3 Quest

Mar 25, 2025

Kaieteur Sports- With just 11 days to go before Guyana welcomes 16 nations for the largest 3×3 basketball event ever hosted in the English-speaking Caribbean, excitement is building. The Guyana...
Read More
2025 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League Fixtures confirmed

2025 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League...

Mar 25, 2025

Virtual Meeting of Caribbean Boxing Promoters held, Guyana among six countries with interest

Virtual Meeting of Caribbean Boxing Promoters...

Mar 25, 2025

GBA AirBadminton Tournament spikes off with historic showing at St. Cuthbert’s Mission 

GBA AirBadminton Tournament spikes off with...

Mar 25, 2025

Briton John sets sights on another sweep with second leg win

Briton John sets sights on another sweep with...

Mar 25, 2025

Waramuri stuns Vreed-en-Hoop 7-1, as Bush Lot topple Ann’s Grove

Waramuri stuns Vreed-en-Hoop 7-1, as Bush Lot...

Mar 24, 2025

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Freedom of speech is our core value at Kaieteur News. If the letter/e-mail you sent was not published, and you believe that its contents were not libellous, let us know, please contact us by phone or email.

Feel free to send us your comments and/or criticisms.
Contact: 624-6456; 225-8452; 225-8458; 225-8463; 225-8465; 225-8473 or 225-8491.
Or by Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]