PEOPLE would always show up at the door of Government with complaints and problems. It’s the nature of the human being that nothing’s ever perfect. Nowhere on the earth would anybody find Utopia, the perfect society.

And how we handle the complaints and problems people show up with determines how our society functions.
The example of Regional Chairman of Region Six, Mr David Armogan, provides a brilliant blueprint on how public servants, Government middle managers, and municipality officials should deal with people and their problems.
Armogan dedicates every morning to listening to the problems and complaints of Berbicians. He sits, humble and pleasant, at his desk and accommodates anybody who shows up at his office. Many people pass through his office every day, showing up without an appointment. And he sees them all, listening attentively, taking notes, picking up his phone to deal with a matter that needs urgent attention, many times including other regional officials, and delegating actions for solutions.
People like him, and Clifton Hicken, the Commander of ‘A’ Division, work behind the scenes to serve the Guyanese people, dedicating hours and hours every week to live up to the professional ethical tenets of servicing the public well.
Yet, it seems that for every hero among us, for every Armogan and every Hicken, we harbor umpteen public servants and professionals at municipal, regional and central Government levels who treat the Guyanese people with disdain, atrocious service, and poor ethics.
In fact, we hear complaints all over the country of “government” not meeting the service needs of people. We use the abstraction of “government” to label the gamut of governing souls who manage the public space of our nation.
Even if one incompetent, inefficient, unprofessional, corrupt public servant interfaces with the public and fails to deliver good service, the Government gets the blame.
Of course, we hear critics say the Government ought to “fire” anyone who’s not performing up to standard. This is easier said than done, as the rules of the Public Service prevent such drastic actions.
Indeed, when the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) won elections in 1992, then President Dr Cheddi Jagan moved with alacrity and determined leadership to rid the Government of heavy, rampant corruption the PPP/C Government had inherited.
But, instead of success, those who got caught and fired sued Government under Public Service rules, and not only got back their jobs to continue their corrupt practices, but even demanded large sums of State funds in compensation.
We see several such cases today, where public servants removed from office resort to the courts.
Our country faces a critical crisis in skilled professionals, with our world-record 89 percent brain drain due to migration. Filling vacancies in the Public Service is not an easy task; it forces Government to resort to contracting employees to satisfy the need for critical expertise.
With the sub-standard skills level in many areas of the service sector, it seems only natural that rogue State and Government employees would use the system for their own benefit.
And these folks mess up the image of Government, damaging the relationship of the State with communities, eroding the integrity of Government, and stifling the professional service of Government at all three levels.
When we encounter servants to the public of the caliber of Armogan and Hicken, and countless others whose stories go unsung, we must encourage them, uplift them and promote them, as they are shining examples to the rest of our nation.
Middle managers of Government and State employees too often adopt an attitude of arrogance, pride and self-importance, and the ordinary citizens interpret this as all of Government being that way.
How could we build Guyana if our citizens see every setback, every problem, and every stumbling they encounter in life’s tough journey, as Government’s cause?
These are the ideas we must tackle and seek to transform, that once our nation secures a freely and fairly elected Government, Guyanese are free to dream, to build, and to design the future they desire.
Such is the task of Armogan, Hicken and the countless others who dedicate their days to people and their problems: to inculcate in each one they encounter the self-belief and confidence that, as Guyanese, each one of us could self-develop and overcome our difficulties in life.
Some people show up at Hicken’s office, or to see Armogan, with the tiniest of problem, lacking the self-leadership, initiative and strength to seek solutions personally.
In a society like ours, having gone through decades of poverty and socio-economic backwardness in the 1970’s and 1980’s, we see generations of people cultivating a dependency syndrome, expecting handouts and welfare and to be taken-care of, for the State to be their babysitter.
Many of these become vociferous critics, opposing just about everything in their society as irrational, emotive and negative.
Our nation harbours vociferous voices who feel hurt and pain and who seek vengeance. In fact, someone made the point on social media this week that a surprising number of folks opposing Government feel personally aggrieved or upset, because they didn’t get what they wanted.
These blame “government”, that broad, passive, undefined term, and expend an enormous amount of energy to slam Government, in the vague hope that their cause would find satisfaction.
But, there’s also the proliferation of corrupt, crass public servants who make the system as inhumane as they could.
Many lawyers who deal with land titles for citizens, for example, complain against “government” for a process that lasts a year or longer, when titles used to be passed within two weeks. Some official somewhere in the system snags the process, and thousands and thousands of peeved Guyanese blame “government”.
We’ve got to find a way to handle this situation, whereby public officials who hamper progress, demoralise citizens, and cause unnecessary blame on Government, to be removed from their positions, which they use to lord it over their fellow citizens.
Guyanese want to feel at ease when their Government serves them, and so we must cultivate a culture within every public servant, through training programmes, so that we see the Guyanese nation filled with leaders like Armogan and Hicken.

By Shaun Michael Samaroo