Dear Editor,

I have been following the various comments in the press on the appointment of Shri Prakash Gossai as an Assistant to the President. Apart from the misunderstanding about the actual role (Assistant vs. Advisor) of Shri Gossai, while some were in praise of the move, others see it as another Indian (Hindu leader) placed in a key position at the Office of the President.

There are several columnists, who criticized the appointment without first examining the benefits of repatriating the revered leader, trying to make a case for the perceived exclusion of Africans. The candidate without doubt is trained and able to make a tangible contribution to the nation.

Eusi Kwayana and several others did not spare words in their unenlightened criticism of the appointment. Kwayana knows more than anyone else how the PNC regime went overboard in installing in the Parliament, the seat of Government, an African cult with routine oblations, rituals and practices featured even today in Independence and Republic celebrations at the Public Building and the Square of the Revolution.

Kwayana did not see the issue of separating State and Religion (Church) then. Courtship of the religious is not alien to our history. State cars taking the First Lady and other officials to Better Hope and elsewhere to Mother Monica was not apologized for by any politicians.

Kwayana gained much respect (as an Elder African) with his impartial writings in the recent past. Now he has undone much of his fair journalism with this narrow-minded criticism of Gossai’s appointment.

A similar appointment in the past favoured another Hindu leader. This involved Pt Gowkarran Sharma who was a Minister of Labour under the PNC. Did Kwayana protest this?

As a Christian Minister I have known Shri Prakash Gossai for over thirty years, longer than many columnists who joined the bandwagon to challenge his appointment. In the seventies he worked at the Central Medical Lab of the Georgetown Hospital.

He migrated to the USA and pursued higher education to a Masters Degree in Chemistry, taught Science in New York before he donned the robe of a Guru and became internationally revered. Is he qualified to serve the nation? I leave that to the level-minded in our midst.

Yours faithfully,

Rev. Seopaul Singh