Can someone define what a consummate professional is?

Aug 21, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – I have long argued that this society is so philosophically and spiritually (not in the religious sense) broken that no part of it possesses a moral compass that can act as a beacon of values.
The Stabroek News (SN) is not just another social actor in Guyana. It is an influential media house. When the press criticises the government of the day, people tend to be swayed by the standards the media use to judge the government. When the media become as outlandish as the lunatic fringe, the society suffers because the men and women with power will display contempt. The reason is predictable. It goes something like this, “These are the people that lambast us daily and they are no example to follow.”
I am not surprised that not one human in this country has commented on the outrageous and dangerous expression of SN that a professional politician who at the same time was a public servant was a consummate professional.
I am asking what is meant by that since it is a pyrotechnical contradiction to me. The examples are endless. A police officer cannot hold a leadership role in an opposition party. At election time, he can transmit sensitive information that can aid his party’s campaign. A simple example should suffice. Let us say an officer at SOCU knew there was a huge mishandling of a sensitive case involving a foreign investor. He can give that information to his party that can be decisive in how voters decide in an election campaign.
Of course, it is virtually impossible for any government to know the political affiliation of public servants. That is a brutal reality. But governments know who the leaders of political parties are. Those leaders cannot be that stupid not to know that if in their political capacity, they hold public sector jobs in managerial positions, then, with change of government, they must know the incoming government will not accept and trust them so they must resign.
In more than three editorials, SN has eulogised the public service performance of Dr. Vincent Adams as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) but is silent on an identical situation with Dr. Van-West Charles. Adams sat in the executive of the AFC during the APNU+AFC government. Charles sat in the general council of the PNC during the APNU+AFC regime.
Adams headed the EPA. Charles was general manager of the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI). Both were removed after the PPP came to power in August last year. Strangely, SN has not devoted one word much less paragraphs in three editorials to the removal of Charles.
For a newspaper that does a daily analysis whose purpose is to generate intellectual debate (that is one of the functions of a newspaper), SN needs to start a debate on the Charles situation. Was it acceptable to retain Charles as the head of GWI even when he is contesting the leadership of the PNC?
The consistent advocacy by SN for Adams to be retained creates an extremely dangerous situation never before seen in Guyana. The PPP did have Dr. Mahender Sharma as an election candidate while he headed the Guyana Energy Agency and Dr. James Rose was a PPP election candidate while he served as Vice Chancellor of UG. The PNC had Dr. Karen Cummings as an election candidate while she was a regional health officer.
In none of these situations, were the candidates in the policy-making executive of their respective parties. Adam was at the time of his EPA tenure a most trusted executive of the AFC, entrusted with authority to make decisions for the AFC. SN’s campaign for Dr. Adams to be retained is uncharted waters. It erases the traditional of separation of power in the public service whereby politicians perform a different role from public officers.
Of course, I don’t expect SN to offer even a half comment on this ugly paradigm that they have composed. In Guyana, no one cares about obligation or moral values. You can bet your last dollars after this column is published, we will see more editorials from SN advising the government on what is the morally right thing to do in Guyana.
My problem is why no one in Guyana and outside of it, has not composed even one paragraph asking SN to elaborate on the paper’s insistence that Dr. Adams should have remained as CEO of the EPA while still sitting in the leadership of the AFC. And Adams must be laughing all the time because he still has not resigned from the AFC’s executive committee. What a morally collapsed society Guyana is.

(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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