The FITUG, like the Guyanese public, was taken aback by the utterances attributed to Minister of Public Health and recently-elected PNC Chairperson, Volda Lawerence. According to online news outfit – Demerara Waves – the Public Health Minister, at a recently held PNC activity, reportedly told her audience “[t]he only friends I got is PNC so the onlypeople I gon give wuk to is PNC and right now I looking for a doctor who can talk Spanish or Portuguese and ah want one that is PNC”. While the Federation respects and upholds the Minister’s right, like all Guyanese, to associate with whom they wish to associate with, at the same time, her admission of sorts that she will only employ persons from a particular political grouping cannot be condoned nor tolerated.
While such a napproach is fraught with dangers and can, in all likelihood, lead to square pegs in round holes, something not in the interest of the Guyanese people, the Minister’s reported statement has legal implications as well. The FITUG wishes to draw to the Minister’s attention that the Prevention of Discrimination Act says what the Minister is apparently doing or seeking to do is illegal. That Act says at Section 4(1) “[f]or the purposes of this Act, a person discriminates against another person if the first mentioned person makes, on any or the grounds mentioned in subsection (2), any distinction,exclusion or preference the intent or effect of which is to nullify or impair equality of opportunity or treatment in any employment or occupation”.Section 4(2)(b), which identifies several grounds for discrimination, among other things, clearly lists that political opinion is a discriminatory ground. By the Minister statement, it appears conflicts with the Act. FITUG is a staunch supporter that jobs must be granted to those who have the relevant qualification and experience and no other consideration should determine or influence potential job seekers.
The FITUG found it interesting, that Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, according to a Demerara Waves report, told students attending the Bertram Collins College of Public Service, during a lecture he delivered, that the “…new public service, therefore, has to be able to deliver in an administratively neutral way and has to be established firmly on the basis of merit and political impartiality”. The statement by Minister Harmon is in stark contrast to what his colleague was reportedly telling the party faithful.Of course, it also brings into question what is the real policy of the Government in recruiting potential employees.
From the FITUG’s point of view, it is clear as day, that the statement by the Minister demands an immediate examination of employment at the Ministry of Public Health during her stint to determine whether the best persons were really employed. A similar approach also has to be extended to the Ministry of Social Protection, which Minister Lawerence previously headed before becoming Public Health Minister. Indeed,it may well require a full scale audit of all employment under the Coalition to determine how far entrenched were such policies. The entire episode brings backinto mind the alleged practice during the Forbes Burnham Administration that in order to secure employment in the public service one first had to be a card-carrying PNC member.
At this time,the FITUG calls on President David Granger, as the Head of State and PNC Leader to immediately put a brake to such practices. We believe it will not help to promote His Excellency’s cause of Social Cohesiveness among all Guyanese.
