Minister Vindhya Persaud

May 23, 2021 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

>>>Encouraging Events, Disturbing Developments<<<

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – It is difficult to come across what is genuinely positive from politicians that benefits ordinary citizens in this society. But I have discovered that whenever the constructive and helpful are needed, Vindhya Persaud, delivers. That would be Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Dr. Vindhya Persaud, and no other. Time and again she delivers what is encouraging, what confirms that she has the interests of Guyanese at heart.
Minister Persaud sets the bar for her more senior comrades in the party and government, and how things should be, how they themselves ought to be. To be about the people. To cut through the deceptions and vacillations and obfuscations, and be there for the people. The president could learn about what is involved in being a real head of state. The oil commissar could take a page (he needs the whole book) to understand that the oil stories he tells expose the nakedness of his obscenities with truth and what is good for Guyana. And, along the same lines, a huge host of ministers could grow in the knowledge in what the obligations of their offices demand of them; meaning, that they must honour the trust placed in them.
Minister Persaud has been about making life a tad more manageable for seniors (pensioners), through eliminating layers of processes, and saving time, so that they can savour the silver linings in their golden years. She has been pushing for a while now for more customer care for those abused and fearful, through timely facilities and provisions put in place. And, in the middle of the week just past, Minister Persaud has again burnished her credentials in the principle of nurturing and caring for those that need it the most. Those would be our children, who have nowhere to go, and no one to look to, or to look out for them. Minister Persaud, and her ministerial team, has moved with consistency and energy to find a roof for our foster children, the hopefully loving environment that they may never have known. That is extending human services, that is striving to provide some measure of social security, and that is a minister at work, and on the go. But with a difference.
The difference in Minister Vindhya Persaud that separates her from most of less hallowed colleagues in government is that she is about the constituency placed in her care. I salute her, and look for more; I trust that she will not let us down. As should be noted by now, I have repeated her name so that there is no mistaking which Persaud I laud. The distinction is that of between light and darkness, as well as between integrity and iniquity.
As I am penning this, the thought comes that if only we had a dozen more like her in this country – in parliament, in the cabinet, in the senior ranks of government, in the high rungs of party leadership – then what a place this Guyana could be. And if we are so cursed (we are) that we can’t get a dozen of them, then I would take a talented towering tenth (as Black Americans did yearn for); and then, if that is still out of reach, then a half dozen will have to do.
It is immensely disturbing that we don’t have even those or any of that in today’s government. We have many churchgoers and religious men and women in that elected pile, but we don’t have practitioners of the honourable, the progressive and the clean. This is what disturbs about governance in this country. It is of how governments and leaders have failed us, but turn around and lie to us. Just look at how they mislead us today, with one deception after another, in the sum of their individual and collective deviousness. Though we have the world at our feet, the best that our leaders and government can do is to kick us in the teeth, and when we are looking. If Minister Vindhya Persaud happens to be the only breath of political fresh air around, then I will have to be content and thankful.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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