The PPP has ulterior motives in calling for this ‘balance’

Jun 08, 2018 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Bereft of any credibility or sane policy to move Guyana forward, the PPP continuously spews nonsensical verbiage to attract attention and hoodwink the Guyanese populace.
A case in point is their most recent position that there is a deliberate attempt to staff the Guyana Elections Commission with Afro-Guyanese, and keep Indo-Guyanese from being employed there.
It started with Robeson Benn saying that there need to be ethnic balance in the employees at GECOM.
Then the party recently said that the commissioners nominated by the governing party scores Indo-Guyanese low and Afro-Guyanese high when conducting interviews. I hope the Guyanese people are paying attention to the absurd views coming out of that party.
The GECOM hires based on expertise and competence, not race. One should not be hired because they will bring ‘ethnic balance’, but because they possess the skill set and technical competence required of the position.
If GECOM is indeed staffed most Afro-Guyanese, this conforms with the ethnic-cultural dynamics in Guyana. Traditional public service and government department jobs has always been attractive to Afro-Guyanese, while Indians are culturally drawn to agriculture and independent commercial ventures, hence the bulk of the public service being dominated by Afro-Guyanese (I am not sure if that is still the case).
It would therefore stand to reason that Afro-Guyanese would outnumber Indo-Guyanese in applying for jobs at GECOM, and may even have more experience.
What is noteworthy is that Indians continue to dominate the commercial and agricultural sectors in Guyana, but you never hear the PPP and their apparatchiks calling for ethnic balance in those areas of national life.
They tend to insinuate that there is a conspiracy of black tribalism orchestrated to deny them power.
No one will buy that nonsensical theory.
The PPP while calling for this ‘ethnic balance’ in GECOM staffing, has never tried to lead by example and provide ethnic balance in the leadership of GECOM. In fact, ever since the establishment of the post-independence elections commission, Benn might be the first Afro-Guyanese to represent the PPP on the commission.
Further, the four times a PPP president appointed a Chairman of the commission, they never selected an Afro-Guyanese to chair the elections commission. There were many qualified Afro-Guyanese that were submitted to various PPP presidents, but they never bothered to give any of them the opportunity.
Did the PNC and Afro-Guyanese cry foul? No, the appointees were duly accepted for their competence, and not their ethnicity.
So here you have the PPP calling for ethnic balance in the commission staff, and they have never demonstrated balancing the leadership of GECOM. How hypocritical!
I believe that anyone who is fit and competent enough, regardless of race, should be given a position they applied for. The most qualified deserve to be hired. The PPP has ulterior motives in calling for this ‘balance’.
Yours truly
Jerrick Rutherford

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News