Nicolette Henry guilty of malfeasance in public office

Dear Editor,
The 2020 Budget Debate and the considerations of the budget allocations for the various Ministries really are a compendium of public malfeasance in office by Ministers of the previous APNU+AFC Government. From start to finish, these 2020 budgetary proceedings in Parliament have been revealing.
On Wednesday, September 23, during the consideration of the budget for the Ministry of Education, Ms. Nicolette Henry was the latest former Minister who exposed further her malfeasance in public office. Nicolette Henry, the former Minister of Education, may think she is full of chutzpah, but the truth is she is really very brazen. She stood in Parliament and lamented that virtually all the teachers in the Caribbean have been trained in delivering the school curriculum using new tools in this era of COVID-19, except for the Guyanese teachers. In her lament, she tried placing the blame on the new Minister of Education, the Honourable Priya Manickchand.
But Minister Manickchand quickly reminded Ms. Henry and her APNU+AFC colleagues, and the people of Guyana, why our teachers are only now receiving such training. For five vital months, instead of focusing on the training of teachers to deliver education with new tools and new methods, Ms. Henry was busy with her colleagues trying to thief the elections. She did not care about our children or our teachers in that critical period, as COVID-19 forced the closure of schools. Now, in just one month after the new Government finally assumed their rightful place, teachers are being trained.
Ms. Henry conveniently pretended she had nothing to do with the failure to have Guyana’s teachers trained in new methods to deliver education. In fact, that egregious failure of APNU+AFC represents malfeasance in public office, and Ms. Henry, as the then Education Minister, is the one who bears full responsibility. She should have stood in Parliament this week, first apologising to the people of Guyana, and second, commending the new Minister and the new Government for starting this training so quickly.
It is already very late in the year, but it is better late than never. Nothing will change the hard, cold facts – Ms. Henry and APNU+AFC recklessly allowed five months to elapse without ever starting the training, even as our Caribbean counterparts started and completed their training.
It was not just being brazen for Henry to stand there pointing her fingers, it was insulting to the intelligence of the Guyanese people. But, then again, it was the same Henry who once stood with her colleagues and tried persuading the children and people of Guyana, and the world, that 33 is not more than 32.
During these same deliberations, Henry wanted information about a learning package for the 27,000 nursery children. This learning package, which constitute workbooks and other learning materials, is as a result of a foreign-funded project that started during the COVID-19 closure of schools, when Nicolette Henry was Minister.
She desperately tried to hide the fact that she did not know what that programme was about, what the contents of the package were.
Minister Manickchand again rebuked her and exposed her total lack of knowledge of a programme that started when Henry was Minister.
But why should anyone expect that Ms. Henry would know? After all, she was totally consumed with what was more important to her at the time – thieving an election. The children of Guyana were of no concern to Henry at the time.
But it is a blessing that the people of Guyana ensured that Ms. Henry finds herself in the Opposition benches, because in those Opposition benches she has experienced a eureka moment: she suddenly recognises how important it is that teachers become trained in new methods of teaching, and that it is important to know what is contained in the learning package for nursery school children. If only she had known that more than six months ago!
Ms. Henry is just the latest APNU+AFC MP demonstrating that brazen is something they wear as a badge of honour.
Not to be outdone, on the same day, Annette Ferguson wagged her fingers and claimed APNU+AFC never terminated the “Because We Care” $10,000 cash grant for school children. We know that the cash grant was introduced by the PPP.
We know that the cash grant was paid out for every school child in 2014. We also know, sadly, that APNU+AFC ended the programme immediately upon assuming office in 2015. Not a single child got the $10,000 cash grant in 2015, or in 2016, or in 2017, or in 2018, or in 2019. So, I challenge Ferguson, if APNU+AFC did not terminate the cash grant programme, to tell the nation of a single child who, in the last five years, got the cash grant. Make no mistake, these APNU+AFC people are disgustingly brazen.

Sincerely,
Dr Leslie Ramsammy