THE GLOBE TROTTER

Nov 28, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

In the run up to the First Test Match in the current series between Australia and the West Indies, there were concerns about the possible effects of jet lag on the performance of the West Indies captain who had earlier returned to Jamaica to be with his mom who was sick.
In fact, Chris Gayle, arrived back in Australia, one day before the First Test match got started having spent close to one hundred hours jetting back and forth between Australia and the Caribbean, in the process crossing many time zones in a very short period of time. It must have been difficult for him.
But it is not Chris Gayle that this column is worried about. It is our President, Bharrat Jagdeo, who is also chalking up a great many hours on travel and who is also crossing many time zones in a similar short period of time. Last week he was at a World Food summit in Rome; then he was in London and this weekend he flew from Brazil to Trinidad where he is currently attending the Heads of Government Summit of the Commonwealth.
Is this not too much travel for such a short period of time for any human being? Should the President not be advised that in light of the fact that he has been straddling time zones so consistently that he needs to ground his feet on home soil for about two months before he undertakes any further overseas travel?
The situation is not going to get any better, because as we know from Trinidad, the President will most likely return home for a few days and then he will have to be off again for that big climate change summit in Denmark.
From a health point of view, the government needs to be concerned about this continuous travel of our Head of State. He is no longer the young boy that he was ten years ago. He is now well into middle age and he must be feeling the effects of this jet lag. The government and the people of this country need to be concerned that the President has to travel across time zones so often.
These trips, as was mentioned in a previous column, must be collectively costing the country a fortune. So far we have not been given a figure of what these trips cost, and in the interest of transparency and accountability, it would be helpful if the people of Guyana can know what the accumulated cost is of all of these journeys – some of which could have been undertaken by other members of the Cabinet.
There was, for example, no reason why the President should have gone to that food summit in Rome. The Minister of Agriculture or even the Prime Minister would have filled in nicely for the President, thus allowing him to get some rest. Or better yet, Guyana could have avoided attending that meeting.
Considering that the Commonwealth Summit was coming up, consideration should have been given to having someone else go to Rome, if it was absolutely necessary for someone to go, since it is too demanding for the President to have to return from Europe and with only a few days rest, be off to Brazil and then to Trinidad and later on to go back again to Europe for that important climate change summit which is likely to last until the 18th of December. The President is not likely to stay away so long but if there is a breakthrough at that conference, it could extend his participation since Guyana is praying for a major deal.
We must not also lose sight of the fact that our President is also Chairman of Caricom and therefore apart from his numerous responsibilities at home, he has the additional burden of shepherding the regional integration movement.
While Guyana’s future is linked to the outcome of the many conferences which sees our President globe-trotting, there are also major domestic issues which require the full attention of the President, not the least of which is the strikes in the critical bauxite industry.
Already we are being told that if the workers in the bauxite industry do not go back to work, RUSAL could pull out of Guyana and in this scenario, we do not need the Chief Labour Officer alone to be spearheading the resolution of this crisis.

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