… on CoI’s
Your Eyewitness has to give a “hat tip” to EB John for critiquing the pappy show the Government’s been putting on the Commissions of Inquiry they’ve conducted. Most recently, he honed in to the one into the public service. The question one is forced to ask is, what really was the purpose of these CoI’s? Were they just stabs in the dark to justify decisions already made?
For sure, the implemented recommendations by the CoI’s can be counted on the finger of one hand. That’s just not good enough for the hundreds of millions expended – and the elevated expectations aroused in their supporters. And even the few implemented – like the Bertram Collins College of the Public Service – fell woefully short of what was envisaged. We’ve already spoken of the jump in contract employees in the public service rather than the reductions recommended – and if their pre-election rhetoric were to be believed – what the Government wanted!
But the CoI into sugar takes the cake. Here the government unilaterally rushed into a miniaturisation of the industry against the explicit recommendations of the CoI – starting with the closure of Wales Estate. Criticised for not following up with all the “diversifications” they’d unleash to absorb the 1700 workers there, this is the best the PR hack of GuySuCo could come up with: “Is it really possible for the corporation to not have developed a strategic programme to address employment and other matters arising out of the restructuring programme?”
Well….yes!!! We don’t have to wonder about the answer to that question – the proof would be in the actions. Just don’t talk – show the sugar workers what the plan is by rolling it out! The PR flak posed the question because of the sugar union’s protests in Berbice. Well, can you blame the Berbice workers after they can see what’s happening at Wales?? Namely NOTHING!? Where’s the rice fields the cane fields were going to be transformed into? Where’s the “other crops”? Where’s even an office to rent or lease lands to workers.
Why should the Berbice workers buy a pig in a poke when they’ve already seen it was just a rat squealing in the poke named “Wales Plans”? These people really believe that old saw – that all Berbicians are mad just because the mad House is located there. But the Government’s clearly unaffected about the sugar workers protests.
They can march all they want out in Berbice in the sun…it’s far away from the government’s air-conditioned offices in Georgetown.
They’ve got to take a leaf out of the Parking Metres Protestors” playbook! Hit Georgetown!!
…in Administration
How many times must this PNC-led APNU/AFC twist the law into a pretzel before its supporters begin to understand eventually they’ll soon become targets?? Have they learnt nothing from the PNC’s first go around? In the beginning everything was sweet; with much “skin teeth” all around. But by the time “white mouth crept in”, “too late!!” was the cry. Remember that old saying about history coming back as “farce”??
The latest farce was, before the ink was even dry on the GPSU’s Presidential ballots – and charges of “rigging” were flying fast and furious about Patrick Yarde’s claim he remained President of the GPSU – Prezzie appointed him Chairman of the Public Service Commission. This was too much for even some diehard Govt partisans. The PPP didn’t even have to comment!!
How’d you place the man who’s supposed to REPRESENT public servants, head the Commission that’s supposed to DISCIPLINE them??
Especially when among the said public servants, are some who dared to challenge Yarde!!
Payback’s a bi*ch!!
…Indentureship Symposium at Umana
Suppose you arranged a symposium and nobody heard or reported it, did it happen?? The question arises with the IAC symposium on Indentureship where half-a-dozen Government officials spoke.
Did the IAC goof by having the Government celebrate immigration – at a space dedicated to our Indigenous peoples?
