AFC proposes to fire hundreds of Public Sector employees
– In Khemraj Ramjattan Motion
IF the AFC has its way, hundreds of contracted workers, in excess of 50% employees, in the Ministries of Housing and Water, Tourism, and Youth Sports and Culture would be sent home today, with no prospects of future employment because several departments of key ministries would become redundant.
In a Motion to be laid today in Parliament by AFC cipher, Khemraj Ramjattan, hundreds of jobs in the Public Sector would become like his co-leadership position – lost through the unique and mystical configurations and conjurations of the AFC.
Ramjattan’s position in the party to which he aspires a leadership position was made pellucidly clear when Housing and Water Minister, Hon. Irfaan Ali, alluded to him as the AFC leader, to which Speaker Trotman responded: “That would be me.”
That makes Ramjattan a cipher, although former President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, had elevated him to the status of “water boy”.  Cathy Hughes waxed eloquently about the need for ample budgetary provision for the tourism sector, yet her party plans to cut the staff that enables the functionality of this sector by more than half – typical opposition double-speak.
Ramjattan continues to embarrass the party; and Moses Nagamootoo has joined him, as was displayed when the latter conjured some mathematical calculations that financial whiz kid, Dr. Ashni Singh waved away as ‘utter nonsense’ with the wand of real knowledge of economics and plain arithmetic.
But Ramjattan’s brilliant economic strategy for empowering the poor and vulnerable, and creating opportunities for the youths – which has become a mantra of the AFC, is to demolish all the facilities and machinery promoting youth and sports development, and send home the cleaners, handymen, drivers, among whom are single mothers and the elderly – all the more vulnerable workers employed on a contractual basis in the aforementioned ministries.
He also plans to reduce the provision of potable water to more than half of the country’s consumers, as well as effectively stop the government’s pride – the housing drive, which is providing homes to vulnerable groups and families all over the country.
At an impromptu press conference hosted by Ministers with portfolios for Housing and Water, Tourism, Public Service, and Youth Sports and Culture respectively, Irfaan Ali, Jennifer Westford and Frank Anthony, the trio decried this Motion as an ego-trip, stating unequivocally that Khemraj Ramjattan is mad to make such proposals, because he is fully aware of the implications and the consequences if such eventualities as he proposes to table ever materialize.
Speaking First, Minister Irfaan Ali listed all the social and infrastructural upheaval that would ensue from this AFC Motion; which could very well materialize because of the minute opposition majority in the House that could outvote the Government on national issues.
Industrial development would be impeded, especially the manufacturing sector, and according to Minister Ali, the housing programme would come to an immediate halt, water supply return to the days under the PNC regime, when potable water was a statistic of the system that indirectly caused unnecessary instances of diseases and death to the most vulnerable Guyanese citizens – the elderly, the children, and the pregnant and lactating mothers.
The sewage system, already doddering, would further collapse through inability to provide a maintenance regime through lack of staff, with deleterious impacts on the health of the nation.
The Motion, argued Minister Ali, is senseless for many reasons, one of them is that many of the projects the AFC seeks to make redundant are foreign-funded.
Minister Frank Anthony commented that the opposition relentlessly pontificated that the government was not doing enough for young people; yet their Motion proposes to butcher the many governmental programmes in youth development, which would fatally wound many departments, especially in the areas of sports and culture.
The Motion, he lamented, would de-gut the National Sports Commission in its entirety, with casualties being the National Aquatic Centre, the National Gymnasium, the Sports Hall, the Lawn Tennis Centre, the Squash Court, the Synthetic Track, among others.  The coaches would be fired, and the warm-up pool at the Aquatic Centre would no longer become realizable, which would in turn impede Guyana’s hosting of a major sporting event in the near future.
This ego-trip of the AFC, as described by Minister Anthony, would bring an abrupt halt to, inter alia, the National Dancing School, the Institute of Creative Arts, and the Burrowes School of Art.  The Government’s initiative to make school drop-outs and other vulnerable groups employable through techvoc training at Kuru-Kuru and other centres throughout the country would immediately come to a halt, as well as the Children’s training programme at Sophia and the remedial and educational programmes afforded the children at the New Opportunity Corps.
Minister Webster asked on what authority the AFC concocted this “madness”, whether the various unions and other workers representatives, especially GPSU had been consulted by that Party and received their consent before conjuring their figures.  She asked also whether the AFC intended to shut down Parliament, because more than 50% of employees serving Parliament are contracted workers.
Deriding the Motion being proposed by Ramjattan as anti-worker and anti-people, the Ministers rejected the proposal to fire any employees on the AFC’s recommendation, proposing instead that if the AFC is successful in their bid to cut the funding for contracted workers, they will accept a pay-cut and do fund-raisers to continue the employment of the workers and keep the government’s developmental, recreational, and educational programmes from folding.
As the Ministers pointed out, this is about people – not politics, because irrespective of whatever party the contracted workers support, they would all be vulnerable to the impacts of the cuts in budgetary allocations to their various departments, as would their children and other dependent family members be.
Calling for solidarity with the proposed victims of the public service cuts, the three ministers requested that everyone desirous of supporting the targeted victims of the AFC’s Motion should wear a white arm band today.
Khemraj Ramjattan seems to have watched a lot of Donald Trump’s antics, and he probably fancies hearing himself say to contracted employees in the Public Service: “You’re fired!”