Dear Editor,
On Friday, 7th August, the University of Guyana’s 2015 Civil Engineering graduating class was required to present their Final Year Project. This was held at the Arthur Chung convention centre. Among the introductory speakers, Mr M Jackson, Head of the Department of Civil Engineering, mentioned to Minister David Patterson that he hoped government will give consideration to hiring some of these graduates in spite of its obligation to hire the returning civil engineering graduates from Cuba.
Fast forward to an article in Demerara Waves of 11th August:
“Prominent executive member of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Dr Veerasammy Ramayya has quit the party over the failure of the party to find lucrative jobs for hardworking campaigners, but party leader Khemraj Rumjattan on Monday ruled out ‘jobs for the boys.’
“It is about serving the people rather than looking for money…I thought that he wanted to serve and all the indications were that he was going to serve, but we are not going to simply condemn him; he is a very hard working fellow,” said Rumjattan, a Vice President and Minister of Public Security.
“It is not jobs for the boys and an exchange or we would do worse than what the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) has done,” he added.
If Mr Ramjattan and our administration is sincere about breaking the cycle of cronyism, engineers and for that matter all new civil service employees should be selected from applicants who have responded to public notices and were interviewed by a non-partial panel, thus demonstrating a degree of impartiality that was never practised by the former PPP government.
Yours faithfully,
Edward Gonsalves
