Remember when APNU and AFC were in the Opposition and had vigorously objected to the use of contracted employment? They chastised the PPP and insisted that all Government employment must be within the public service pensionable establishment. Now they are in Government, the number of contracted employees has more than doubled. APNU/AFC is employing hundreds of people under contracts, as political operatives, with higher salaries and bigger benefits. The plan to move doctors and other professionals from contracted employment into the pensionable establishment is a sinister plan to create space for employing more political activists and operatives. This is more about “jobs for the boys and girls”, rather than sound policies. The doctors are collateral damage.
However, APNU/AFC’s wicked plan to create more space by moving the doctors out of the contract category to the pensionable establishment has hit a snag. In fact, APNU/AFC is experiencing another rude awakening in the form of national outrage and resistance. They did not envisage the mighty resistance from the doctors and the now resuscitated Guyana Medical Association. APNU/AFC also did not anticipate the public’s reaction – keep your hands off the doctors. It moreover did not prepare itself for the vigilance of the PPP and Bharrat Jagdeo, who warned they would go to court to challenge the assault on the rights of the doctors. Jagdeo even promised the PPP would overturn the illegal changes in the doctors’ terms of employment when the PPP won the next election.
On Monday of this week, under pressure, APNU/AFC and the Public Health Ministry buckled and now claimed they never had such a plan. In a hastily arranged “consultation” with doctors, they tried convincing the doctors and the public that it was just rumours, never mind some of the doctors had seen the circulated orders for the doctors to be transferred from the employment category to the pensionable establishment. They might have the DNA of dictators, but the resistance and solidarity of people who refuse to be silent have forced APNU/AFC to buckle once again. Like the citizens who have in the past 10 weeks gathered in resistance to the parking meters, doctors and their fellow citizens raised their voices and the dictators took notice, cowering “it wasn’t me”.
The insistence that it was just a misunderstanding and a rumour is an insult to the doctors. There was no rumour. APNU/AFC and the Public Health Ministry in their typical authoritarian style did start a transition to end contract employment for doctors since February. Some people have asked why the big fuss. Under the contract arrangements, doctors receive a 22.5 per cent gratuity payment every six months. The shift to a pensionable arrangement would deprive the doctors of their 22.5 per cent gratuity and, instead, they would be entitled to a pension when they reached retirement age.
Since 1992, under the PPP, doctors had a choice – contract employment or the pensionable establishment. Almost 100 per cent of the doctors in the last two decades given the option of the pensionable establishment and contracted employment have chosen the contracted employment route. In fact, under the PPP, several doctors who were initially employed under the PNC on the pensionable establishment ended that employment and opted for contracted employment. APNU/AFC underestimated the outrage and resistance of the doctors. It is another hard lesson for APNU/AFC. Their authoritarian DNA cannot flourish in a Guyana that enjoyed freedom and democracy for more than two decades, following the almost three decades of PNC dictatorship which ended in 1992. The parking meter contract foisted on the people through the complicit action of the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown and APNU/AFC elicited massive resistance and forced, at least, a temporary retreat by APNU/AFC. Now, with the doctors, APNU/AFC has retreated by deeming the whole episode as mere rumours.
But the doctors must beware. There is no need for diplomacy; APNU/AFC is not being truthful. There is a definite plan to end contract employment for doctors. APNU/AFC desperately needs the space to hide the employment of hundreds of activists to function full time as political operatives, an election priority for APNU/AFC. Just as it is playing games with the parking meter contract, it is trying to buy time with the doctors. Given the disastrous state of the public health sector in the midst of rampant and chronic corruption, APNU/AFC has opted this time to avert a rebellion from doctors. It has stepped back to buy time, but the doctors must be vigilant because APNU/AFC cannot be trusted.
