By Ravin Singh  

PRESIDENT David Granger has defended the appointments of several former and present Guyana Defence Force (GDF) officers by the APNU+AFC government, stating that it was done on merit. The President’s remarks were made on Thursday during the recording of his weekly television programme “The Public Interest.” The Government recently appointed Retired Brigadier Bruce Lovell and Retired Colonel Windee Algernon to conduct Commissions of Inquiry (CoI) into the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) and a recent fire at the Children’s Drop-In Centre which killed two children.

Nazrul Hussain, who is a serving colonel, was also appointed to head the Department of National Events of the Ministry of the Presidency. But according to the Head-of-State, these individuals were hired on the basis of competence and experience. He said he will not discriminate against them.
“These are human beings. These are people with skills. They’re not a separate breed of citizens. We can’t deprive them of their rights if they have the talent, the experience, [and] the qualifications. I don’t discriminate against them,” the Head of State said.
Further, he pointed out that when he assumed office in May 2015, there were about 10 officers whom the PPP administration had already appointed.
Under the PPP administration, Major-General Joe Singh was appointed Chairman of the National Task Force Commission; Retired Col. Chabilall Ramsarup was appointed Director-General of the Civil Defence Commission (CDC); Colonel Brassington Reynolds was appointed a Judge; and Colonel Jawahar was appointed Accountant-General.
In light of this fact, the President reasoned that he does not believe that former Presidents Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar had discriminated against these persons, given the number of them who were employed under their Government.
As such, he sought to question why people, and the PPP would expect him to discriminate against these persons.
“Everybody recognises that some of the appointments made by the previous administration and nobody criticised them. Why should they criticise me?” he questioned.
The President went on to state that he could certainly make some criticisms since the PPP had appointed someone who was cashiered from the GDF as a minister and that individual was put in Cabinet. As a result, he noted that when the opposition party wishes to point fingers, the members should explain why such a person was given such a high position in the administration.
“I don’t see that anything could be wrong in asking a colonel or brigadier to do a commission of inquiry. The question is, are they competent to do it? There is the old saying that it doesn’t matter if it’s a black cat or white cat, if it catches rat, it’s a good cat. We want good cats,” the President said.