GEA staffers nervous after polygraph tests, will know fate next month

Mar 28, 2013 News

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The jobs of several Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) staffers could be in jeopardy following a new round of mandatory but controversial polygraph testing of state employees in sensitive positions.
Just last week, the agency dismissed two senior staffers who repeatedly abstained from taking the polygraph test for three consecutive years.
However, more than 30 employees who did in fact submit to the lie detector test are awaiting results and will likely know their fate next month.  Staffers say tension is high at the GEA as authorities “usually use results staffers never see to fire employees and replace them with friends and family.”
GEA Director, Mahender Sharma, confirmed to reporters that tests were administered to staffers who work in the field, as a means trying to abate the smuggling of cheap fuel from neighbouring Venezuela in the avoidance of import taxes.
Sharma said that the agency is trying “to ensure the integrity of the system and by extension, the officers employed under the fuel marking programme.
In addition to continuous monitoring of activities, work ethic, conduct, successes, failures and subsequent investigations of reports of corrupt practices; polygraph tests have been institutionalized as part of government’s drive to tackle corruption.”
Government has in the past three years taken to polygraph testing to weed out state employees suspected of corruption but labour bodies such as the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) have blasted that the test is used more for selective firing of un-favoured employees with opposition links, not because employees are corrupt.
In 2008, at least nine persons, including the director of the special narcotics branch, Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), were dismissed after allegations arose that the officers were in the pockets of drug barons and sabotaged criminal cases that actually made it to court by giving false testimony or by conducting haphazard investigations. In 2010, another four CANU officers were dismissed when they failed to turn up for their polygraph tests.
Several senior officers and directors of the customs department were also in the past transferred to subordinate duties after refusing polygraph testing, but government has said it is necessary for state employees in a position of trust.
Those awaiting results at the GEA are inspectors who travel around the country inspecting fuel used by petrol stations and the mining industry in particular to determine whether it is fuel smuggled from private sellers in Venezuela and brought by small craft during the night in rivers in western Guyana.
One of those fired on March 22, last, Vernon James, has argued that the manner in which the test is being done is unorthodox. He said that he was never aware of the test until he arrived at the location. Additionally, the man charged that the document provided prior to the test being done clearly stated the voluntary aspects. He highlighted that it was indicated that the process was a voluntary one and not mandatory.
He thus charged that when the CEO of the energy agency asked why he refused the lie detector test, he said that he had not refused anything, but had not volunteered.  James however said that he was fired because he did not volunteer to be tested.
The GPSU in 2009 criticized the government when the CANU officers were fired for failing the test, and had expressed frustration, describing the government’s moves as arbitrary, discriminatory and unlawful.
The Global Polygraph Network out of the US had however charged that employers are permitted to request that employees submit to a polygraph exam under some specific conditions as provided for by U.S. federal law.
According to the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, as quoted by the Global Polygraph Network, for an employee to undergo an exam there must be a “reasonable suspicion” that the employee was involved in an incident related to a specific economic loss, either through theft, vandalism, embezzlement, or other misappropriation of money or property.
The Global Polygraph Network also noted that if an employee refused to take the examination, the employer may take no “adverse employment action” against the employee as a result of this refusal. That means that the employee cannot be terminated, demoted, or lose pay or position solely because of this refusal.
If an employee “fails” the test, the employer still may not take an “adverse employment action” against the employee without additional supporting evidence indicating the employee’s involvement in the loss, the law states.
It was Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon who announced in 2009 that the government was seeking to institutionalize polygraph tests in Guyana.
Former president Bharrat Jagdeo was the one who introduced the idea of polygraph testing and had stated back then that polygraphy would be reviewed. He was one of the strongest advocates of extending the polygraph test to other agencies, since at the time; the test was only administered to CANU and law enforcement officials.  Local testing is done with assistance from international polygraph testing firms.

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