…Public Servants’ attitude?
Well, whaddya know! Minister of State, Joseph Harmon really thinks he can change the attitude of Guyana’s Public Servants??!! Who does he think he is? Hercules about to start on the Augean Stables after the horses had been dropping doodoo for hundreds of years? If ever there was an oxymoron – you know…when you combine contradictory terms in a single expression – it’s the term “public servants”!! It’s almost as bad as “walking dead” – which is what Public Servants imitate when they deal with the public!!! Well, last weekend, Harmon held a retreat for the top tier of the Public Service and after lopping off some Permanent Secretaries’ heads, he demanded that Public Servants treat the public with respect. Said Harmon – “We are their servants. We are the Public Service. We are not public masters. We must understand that the people who come to you, come to our offices, are our masters. These are the people you were employed to serve … Treat the public with the courtesy and respect that they deserve as the masters of us.”
You could’ve knocked your Eyewitness over with a feather! But then he remembered some comments of Harmon’s boss – who just happens to be Prezzie – when a Commission of Inquiry into the Public Service was placed in his hands. Now, there’d been great expectations about salary increases when APNU/AFC took over. Not surprisingly since the manifesto explicitly mentioned “significant” raises – and more to the point, this was THEIR Government, no? Hopes were shattered, however, when Prezzie said, “Many people expect there is going to be some bonanza. I hope they will discover that the bonanza will come from their own efforts. The bonanza will come when they work hard and do better than the next person. If they want to be lazy, they will get a lazy person’s remuneration. If they work hard, they will be rewarded for their hard work.”
Well!!! But Prezzie mentioned three criteria by which this lot should be judged: impartiality/social responsibility, education and experience. Now your Eyewitness knows that the only way to get folks to change their ways is when those preaching change begin to practise the change. So, can you imagine your Ministers – who’re their bosses – beginning to treat the public like their masters and fill those criteria???? If you believe that then your Eyewitness has a bridge across the Essequibo River he wants to sell to you!
So, Dear Reader, when next you have to pick up your NIS cheque, or (God forbid!) ask about your house lot application, be grateful with the stare of disdain you usually get! At least they acknowledged your presence!
…the GECOM chair
So, the Opposition Leader will be submitting another list to Prezzie to fill the vacancy of GECOM’s Chair. From the very beginning, your Eyewitness had said the clause “or any other fit and proper person” actually meant any other person – not a judge – who had the QUALITIES of a judge. And evidently Prezzie has now come around to your Eyewitness’ position. The problem, of course, will be whether he and the Opposition Leader agree on what those qualities are. But we don’t have to guess about this. For over a decade the two sides couldn’t agree as to who were to be Chancellor or Chief Justice!!
Those positions are the emblematic ones as to what constitutes “judge-like” qualities, no? So, we’ll be back to square one. Your Eyewitness suggests one of the rejects take the matter to court to let a judge say who’s most like a judge!! They should at least be sober?
…Hamilton Green’s style
Trying to justify the special Bill in the name of Hamilton Green as a “Pension” Finance Minister Winston Jordan said the millions per month were to allow Green to live “as he was used to”. So this means he’ll now start beating up protesters with batons again?
