The schools Priya Manickchand belong to

Apr 20, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
I refer to the Stabroek News editorial for Sunday, April 13 captioned, “Vulgarity.” I was moved to pen this commentary out of your description as follows; “The father of political vulgarity in its modern incarnation is undoubtedly, former President Bharrat Jagdeo…Ms. Manickchand clearly belongs to the same school.” What must be added is that the fact that Ms. Mancickchand was a Jagdeo discovery. I have long written on the politics of Manickchand after I saw her performance in Parliament when she was made a Minister by Mr. Jagdeo.
It was clear to me that her postures, gesticulations, vocabulary and facial expressions indicated that she was not going to be a debater who would abstain from unbecoming language. I wrote about this. What I also wrote about after conversations with people with access to the PPP hierarchy was the type of politics she had embraced – the typical hard line approach by the PPP. In fact, one of the children of a very senior PPP leader in 2011 said that Manickchand belongs to the traditional thinking in the PPP that sees the PPP as being destined to lead Guyana.
Ms Manickchand, in my opinion, also belongs to the Clement Rohee school that refuses to see that they dish out what they don’t want people to dish out to them. Right in front of me during a recess of the libel trial Mr. Jageo brought against me, Manickchand sought to upbraid Mark Benschop over an unflattering piece on her on Benschop’s web page. I was disgusted and turned away.
In July last year, Ms. Manickchand contacted the publisher of Kaieteur News, Mr. Glen Lall over my column, “In the Ministry of Education, an evil injustice goes on,” Friday, July 2013.
The column was based on research I have been doing since 1989 on school placements at the nursery and primary levels. My data is irrefutable. It is fool proof and more waterproof than a submarine – at the prestigious nursery and primary schools, children from outside the “catchment” area get into those schools by large numbers
In my research, I showed where in Station Street, Kitty, less than five percent of the children who live there get into Stella Maris when Stella Maris serves that area, it is the catchment school for that part of Kitty. At St. Margaret, the situation is equally obnoxious. The article made no mention of Ms, Manickchand or the Minister of Education.
On contacting Mr. Lall, Ms. Manickchand complained about a line in the column which said that over the past two years the situation has worsened. She told Mr. Lall that by those words, it meant her as Minister. This is the type of politician Ms. Manickhand is. To think that a Minister can contact a newspaper over such a banal, ordinary opinion is dangerous stuff. And I would like to think that can only happen in Guyana
Because Ms. Manickchand is a mother of two young children, I called her about the article. I felt that a mother may feel aggrieved when her children saw pungent criticism of her in the press. And I will never set out to hurt people’s image in front of their children. In our conversation, Ms. Manickchand promised she will release the figures to me to show that the schools do indeed stick to their catchment areas. She also assured Kaieteur News she would provide the spread sheets. To date she has not. She cannot because my research is accurate
I did remind Ms. Mancickchand that contrary to her public statement that the University Council’s vote to dismiss on January 2012 was unanimous was offensively untrue. In fact, the dismissal went through by a majority of one vote. From my analysis, I predict that the worse is yet to come with Ms. Manickchand.
In closing I would ask the Minister two questions. Could she answer Christopher Ram who wrote in 2012 in a letter to the Stabroek News which he repeated in his Sunday Stabroek News column (Nov 13, 2011 and repeated again at a TUC symposium on the 2012 budget that under her watch as Minister of Social Services, the number of people earning old age pension cannot be what the Ministry stated.
He said it was high when you take into consideration the age structure of Guyana’s population based on the then existing census. Secondly, her house in Pradoville 2 was up for sale. Has it been sold? I could go further and ask at what price but that may be asking too much
Frederick Kissoon

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The schools Priya Manickchand belong to

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