Persecution by prosecution

May 27, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Congratulations are extended to the editor-in-chief of this newspaper Adam Harris on his national award. It is now hoped that the new administration would do the right thing and ensure that Adam is paid the outstanding benefits which were due to him since 1992 when he stepped aside in accordance of the wishes of the PPP/C government which took office in that year.
When the PPP/C took power after being cheated out of office for twenty-eight years, they made it clear that they were not comfortable with Adam being in his position. He did not protest or resist. He simply allowed them the space they wanted by retiring. The natural thing to do would have been for him to be paid his benefits. But the PPP/C adamantly (no pun intended) refused. It was a glaring case of injustice which this new administration must put right, if it has not done so already.
The new government has gone on a cleaning spree since it got into power. Its cleaning is continuing, with persons who worked under the previous administration being swept out of their jobs.
The PPP/C has been a good opposition but one of its failures, so far, has been its inability to compile a list of persons who have been dismissed, forced to resign or not have their contracts renewed since the APNU+AFC government took office. That evidence would reveal the scale of the shake-up within the public sector.
The changing of the guard is continuing with unabated pace and with dire consequences. Many of the newcomers, while eminently qualified, have not outfitted themselves with the same competence as those they replaced. This is one of the main reasons why the government is out of its depth in managing the country.
The eagerness to remove persons who worked under the previous PPP/C administration arose because of the political suspicions by the present administration, that persons within the system who were appointed during the term of the previous administration were political appointees. The new government does not appreciate that there are professionals who would give of their best, regardless of the government of the day. They served the PPP/C administration to the best, and for their dedication and professionalism they have been deemed as being partisan and therefore eligible to be purged.
A new method of removing them is now emerging. They are being persecuted through prosecution.
There is no need for this level of vindictiveness and harassment. All the government has to do, is to do like what the PPP/C did to Adam in 1992. They called him in and made it clear that they were not comfortable with him. He stepped aside quietly.
The APNU+AFC should do the same. It should not subject professionals to humiliation and public shame. It should simply call in those persons with whom it is not comfortable and advise them that the government is not comfortable working with them. Those persons are not going to resist. They will leave of their own accord. But when you try to bully, shame and victimize them, as being done now, they will resist.
Professionals are not going to give any government a hard time. If they are asked to walk they will walk. There is no need to subject them to demeaning conduct. There is no need to publicly embarrass them just in order to be able to replace them with persons with whom the government is comfortable. Just ask and they will walk.
The government is going to lose a great deal of professionals because of the actions it is taking. Skilled persons are not going to hang around to be publicly shamed and humiliated. They are going to migrate and Guyana is going to lose, as it did in the past, critical skills.
It took years for those professionals to acquire the level of expertise which they have, and all of that is going to be lost to the country, simply because the government does not have the decency to call in persons and say to them that the government is not comfortable with them.
Those who leave under the present regime will leave because they are seeing the writing on the wall. They are not going to expose themselves to be treated in the same way. They are going to walk, and will take with them years of institutional knowledge, for which there is simply no substitute.
All of this could be avoided if the government did what the PPP/C did to Adam in 1992. Just ask!

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Persecution by prosecution

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