Dear Editor,
Once again, there is appreciation for Mr Nowrang Persaud’s methodical, if not textbook, commentary on this whole business of public sector personnel composition. I refer to his letter titled ‘It is the knowledge, skill, and experience of the players which matter most’ (SN, June 10). I could not agree more.
Nevertheless my concern lingers that, while understanding his dedication to the finer parts of the personnel manual, Mr Persaud may have obscured where I am heading, and where he himself has acknowledged that we have failed to go. To put it gently, I think there might be some occasional self-blindfolding. So, although, there is embracing on both of our parts of specific criteria, the individual lines of sight for each of us end up in the same silo, but at varying levels, and with different intensities.
I read of “knowledge, skill, and experience” and say that no one can have any quarrel with such; at least, not anyone progressive, modern, and unbiased all at the same time. It is why my questions persist: In this society, with a heaving smorgasbord of competing ethnicities and clashing cultures, why is it that we have “never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity” (Abba Eban), despite all the words and volumes to the contrary?
Why was it that “knowledge, skill and experience” were found to reside overwhelmingly with one group only during the PNC years? And then this same heralded pantheon of attributes found a corresponding foundation and superstructure during the recently concluded PPP decades?
To ask and answer, and to reiterate my own stated priority, all the guiding manuals, all the workshops touting this or that best practice, and all the academic posturing relative to this most sensitive of areas became submerged and lost. That is, lost to the more sacrosanct commandments of patronage, identification, and kind. This is where sinister subjectivity mauls unpractised objectivity.
From a purely distanced bloodless approach, Mr Persaud cannot be faulted for his position(s). From the incontestable measurements generated by the personnel selection tranches (and scholarships and procurement and so forth), the reality of past and present holds neither water nor commonsense, when all the vaunted conditions and requirements are considered.
In short, all the impressive bureaucratic and political prose, however delivered, break away under the relentless greenhouse effect of consistent heat. Speaking for myself, I am familiar with successes and denials at every level, whether junior, mid-level, or very senior; been there, seen it, lived it, both here and other places, despite the plethora of core operating values and principles and supporting documentation. Many others have too.
To reduce to the simplest terms, men and women have betrayed and violated the very standards that stand as calls to action; hence the ethnic droughts from one era to another. Whoever postures otherwise, using whatever yardstick, seeks to rationalize the irrational. One has to remember that others did use sacred Scripture to justify the abomination of slavery; given that, then what is a little discrimination?
When all is distilled and condensed, what has occurred here for the longest while must change, or else this nation goes nowhere. Genuine consideration must be given to Mr Persaud’s qualifications. I daresay that if such genuine emphasis, prioritization, and recognition become the norm, then the results will be different, if not noticeably so. The races and faces will reflect some more of the local demographics.
Finally, it ought to be noticed that I did link meritocracy, situational improvement, and statistical enhancement to social cohesion. It might be my own irrationality embedded in a great leap forward that has never happened here.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
