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My theory is both contextual and philosophical
At the philosophical level, I reject with emotional firmness and attitudinal inflexibility, the longevity of individual leadership. It is not healthy for human freedom and intellectual thinking. It stultifies the moral foundations of society.
Power is so dangerous that it should never be concentrated in the permanency of possession. I long became suspicious of Fidel Castro’s liberation credentials when I saw his acceptance of permanent leadership.
Castro ruled Cuba a few months shy of fifty years. I could never accept such longevity of power, and I have strong philosophical reasons, some of which I alluded to above.
Now for the contextual argument. In Guyana, there is not an ordinary but a devastating weak human resource base. It has had a terrible negative effect on the application of knowledge to development. And this is in all spheres of life here; in engineering, surgery, bureaucracy, governance, media, education – the works.
This tiny human resource base is going to graphically show up in the face of the Guyanese people when the oil boom arrives. At every level, we need people with skills and experience. With our young population, we have to share those skills and experience. In this context, I find the Granger Administration extremely unthinking.
Take our diplomatic appointments. With our young population and with this country set to reap the benefits of oil, our young people need as much exposure in diplomacy and international relations as they can get. Our recent diplomatic appointments simply do not gel with modern thinking.
Let’s go to the private sector. If you examine some of the top financial houses, none of the boards have young, smart graduates, whether from UG or foreign universities. This part of Guyana is an enduring old boys’ network. I know two lecturers at UG, each of whom has three Masters in business-related subjects from western universities. I doubt they were ever asked to sit on the board of any of these financial houses. This is where the country loses out in the accumulation of skills and experience.
This has been a long (maybe boring digression) response to a letter in Wednesday’s edition of KN that criticized me for asking why Mr. K. Juman Yassin should not step down from the presidency of the Guyana Olympics Association after 25 years at the helm. I am glad and pleased that the writer, Harri Narine Singh, was correct in putting my attitude in its right perspective.
The column in question was longevity of office. I had not one word to say about Mr. Yassin’s record as a sports organizer. I don’t know anything about the personal and professional life of K. Juman Yassin. I don’t know where he lives and what he does, except he is the president of the GOA
I thank Mr. Singh for his kind words on my praxis but I will continue to embrace my theory, for both philosophical and contextual reasons, that longevity in office is not a useful purpose in the life of any country and in Guyana, it should not go on.
Let’s look at sports administration from the standpoint of Guyana’s skills shortage. If the GOA presidency was frameworked in two terms only, it would have meant that for the past 30 years we would have had about five persons in Guyana with the skills and experience of running an Olympics-based entity. We don’t, because when Mr. Yassin’s tenure is over he would have completed 30 years.
It is the identical situation elsewhere. Name three persons with the experience of leading the largest trade union in Guyana in the important industry of sugar. The answer is that for the past 35 years, there has only been one such person – Mr. Komal Chand. He was reelected to serve again in September last year.
Name four persons with the craft of administering the affairs of a human rights body. Mr. Mike Mc Cormack has been at the helm of the GHRA for about 40 years.
The head of the Guyana Consumers Association was physically incapacitated for over a decade but did not give up on the headship. Her deputy succeeded her. He had been the deputy for almost 20 years. Four years ago he became the head. He isn’t going to leave soon. Lincoln Lewis is a personal friend of mine, but he has been the General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress for 17 years.
The simple lesson to learn is that in the context of our poor and tiny human resource index, term limit has superb, positive effects – it allows for the expansion of skills and experience in the population. That is commonsense, man.
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