Dear Editor,
Following comments made by Mr Carl Greenidge at the funeral service of his long-time friend and colleague Mr Winston Murray, Mr Manzoor Nadir, the man who is supposed to keep people in work, wrote the Caricom Secretary General Mr Edwin Carrington effectively seeking the sacking of Mr Greenidge from his position as Deputy Senior Director in the Caricom Secretariat’s Office of Trade and Negotiations.
It was not the first time that the PPP/C had sought to interfere with the former minister’s professional development. Shortly after the PPP/C assumed office in 1992, the government refused to support Mr Greenidge’s bid to become the Deputy Secretary General of the ACP Group, a position he eventually secured for a period. And when the time came for a renewal of his contract, the administration again did not support him.
Nor was Mr Greenidge the first casualty of this type of PPP/C hate-filled diplomacy. The country lost the distinction of its national Mr Rashleigh Jackson, former Foreign Affairs Minister serving as the President of the United Nations General Assembly when the PPP government refused to support him. Economist Clarence Ellis suffered the same fate, this time for a senior position with the IDB. But to show that its vindictiveness is both colour and gender blind, the government did the same with Dr Janette Bulkan, an internationally acknowledged expert in forestry.
Now compare that with Mr Asgar Ally, former Senior Finance Minister in the Cheddi Jagan administration, who spoke at a PPP/C rally on the West Demerara over the weekend. He called on the people to support that party’s presidential candidate, Mr Donald Ramotar, shockingly telling them that anyone who can run Freedom House can run Guyana! What a recommendation from an international public servant.
After a couple of years as Minister, Mr Ally was sacked by President Cheddi Jagan, allegedly following a number of ethical issues. He later turned up at the IMF with the blessing of the Government of Guyana and is (or was up to a few months ago), a Senior Advisor to the Executive Director for Guyana Mr Paulo Nogueira Batista where he played a big role in the most recent IMF Country Report on Guyana released in June 2011.
It seems that it is okay for international public servants to speak on the PPP/C political platform.
But to speak at a private occasion for a friend, as in the case of Mr Greenidge, or for simply being international public servants who had once been associated with a different political party, as Jackson and Ellis were, or as in the case of Dr Bulkan, for expressing a professional opinion, are crimes that must meet with the deprivation of a fundamental right to work.
The double standards of the PPP/C including its vindictiveness towards African Guyanese and others opposed to it are a frightening manifestation of its own backward political sub-culture.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher Ram
