Mr. MOHAMED Akeel seems to be begging the issue on the National Minimum Wage Order. We have seen Mr Akeel’s recent response to our letter dated July 23, 2013 and we are satisfied that rather than being helpful, his second letter, like the first, is intended to embarrass officers in the Ministry of Labour, who would have been trained under Mr Akeel’s leadership. In fact,he wants to exhibit his superior knowledge, and it should be so, given his vast years as a labour officer or we would have been disappointed if he did not have the skills and competence. Therefore, his skills and competence are out of the question.

We are, however, disappointed that (1) as a former Chief Labour Officer he chose to go public on an issue which initially could have been discussed with his former colleagues of long years. We can only ask, what was his motive to go public? And we already answered that. Further, setting certain categories of worker hours of work as what he mentioned in his letter concerning the public sector is not equivalent to setting the National Minimum wage or the national working hours. He should know that long before that the National Association of Agricultural Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE) had a 40-hour, five-day work week in the sugar industry.
We also did indicate that we were conscious of conflicting aspects of the Order as against the Act and did say that the issue is being looked at for amendment. So the fulmination of Mr Akeel was unnecessary. Reading his letter, one can only come to the conclusion that brinkmanship is preferred by him rather than constructive dialogue. His attempt to show his industrial relations acumen is not lost, but what a vain attempt it is? Imagine in a letter on a labour issue this patriotic Guyanese refers to a ‘green card’ that he does not have. Why lament that? What relevance has it to his letter?
His last interesting paragraph gives us the impression that he is really after the Minister of Labour. After all, he seems to have taken umbrage at the minister’s attendance at the Guyana Trade Union Congress’ (GTUC) Labour Day Rally 2013, which he describes as an Opposition rally and hinted that the minister should have attended the Government’s rally. The minister did also attend the Federation of Independent Trades Union of Guyana (FITUG) 2013 May Day Rally.
We wonder if Mr Akeel is referring to the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union rally as a Government rally and what yardstick he used to describe the TUC’s rally as ‘Opposition’ rally. We also wonder at his knowledge of the Guyana Pubic Service Union as a “separatist” union. It must be from his enormous industrial relations experience.
Hail Akeel! You are an expert! Please try one more time so that we can know more of what is on your mind and what is bothering you. Come clean and deal with the person you perceive as an ‘opposition and unpatriotic’ Guyanese.