I NOTE with much indignation, albeit disgust, that Regional Chairman, Region 8, Mr. Mark Crawford has been cajoled into joining the small group of protagonists who appear hell-bent on persisting in their personal attacks on one of the hardest working of our Cabinet Ministers, the Hon. Priya Manickchand, whose success story in Education over the relatively short period of her stewardship as Education Minister has incurred the envy of some from among Opposition elements.
The Regional Chairman‘s remarks could at best be described as reckless, devoid of the truth and nothing short of being unpatriotic.
‘Oh Judgment! Thou has spread to brutish beasts and some men have lost their reason to be counted among us patriots.’ The Regional Chairman who seems to relish burying himself in innuendoes and character assassination, had previously made a similar representation, albeit this time with a few embellishments, and is now clearly emboldened by our failure to respond, so he repeats his untruths.
In a letter to the Stabroek News published on the 9th July 2014, the Regional Chairman repeated his Party’s misinformed and highly unpatriotic line that the acting Foreign Affairs Minister Priya Manickchand was out of order when she, speaking on behalf of the Government of Guyana, exposed the U.S. Ambassador for his tactless and undiplomatic attack on the President, Mr. Donald Ramotar, and PPP General Secretary, Mr Clement Rohee, and his call for an insurrection in Guyana.
The Regional Chairman’s sadly ill-informed and misguided line: a product of the Alliance For Change (AFC) party from which he emanated, has been answered by many but I do take the opportunity to refer the Regional Chairman to the informed and wise writings of Justice Duke Pollard and Dr. Henry Jeffrey on the specific issues of what is diplomatic and what is not and how an Ambassador who crosses the line should be treated. These positions of law may, once read and understood serve to edify the Chairman. I believe they informed the statements made by the Minister who I am hasten to remind the Chairman is a trained Attorney-at-Law.
And while I am on the subject, I do wish to point out to the Regional Chairman that the Government has said that the U.S. Ambassador was spoken to behind closed doors many times but failed to adhere to that which is right and proper in Diplomatic Relations. It should be noted also that the Ambassador has never refuted the contention that he was addressed on this matter before. So now that the AFC Chairman and his party know this, I assume they will be calling on the now departed Ambassador to make an apology to the people of Guyana.
May I refer also to the Regional Chairman’s allegation which he keeps repeating; that the Minister of Education at a meeting hosted by the Ministry of Local Government on the 13th and 14th February, 2014 at the International Conference Centre and which sought to provide opportunity for Local Government and other Sector Ministers to address issues and concerns affecting the smooth delivery of services in the 10 Administrative Regions, heckled him.
Several Ministers including the Ministers of Education and Health and their teams were invited so that Regional Officers could raise concerns with them and they with Officers.
The Minister of Education and her entire team were present and the Minister of Education was clear that the delivery of services in Education was de-centralised. Among issues raised were the timely delivery of exercise books, text books, results and improvements in examination results in the regions, effective placement of teaching staff, etc.
The Hon. Minister further raised as a matter, the politicising of education where children are harmed for it. The Minister said that the Ministry had only that same day received a letter, the content of which indicated, inter alia, that the Regional Chairman had gone into the female dorms at Mahdia at 02:00 hrs in the morning with a team from the AFC who was visiting the Region.
The Minister was not shy in opening a discussion around whether behaviour like that was healthy for the children. The meeting moved on to address other issues, some that were raised by the regional officers and some that were raised by the education officials. That meeting was very productive and we have seen many changes since then in all regions that have and will ensure be to the benefit of the children of this country.
I am not sure if the Chairman fully understood the objectives of the meetings as, while he has never denied taking an AFC team into the female dorm at 02:00hrs, he keeps saying that that meeting was not the place for such a serious concern to be raised.
The meeting was precisely the place for the Ministry of Education to raise such issues; even as it was the place for the regional teams to raise with the Ministry of Education the issues that were raised.
We are grateful that the Ministry of Education and particularly the Minister of Education is very prompt in their responses to concerns raised about education in the various Regions. We sincerely hope that the Regional Chairman would stop perpetuating this untruth – that he was heckled. He was not heckled. He was told in no uncertain terms by the Minister and the Ministry of Education that he made a poor choice when he took a team of political agents into the female Mahdia dormitory at 02:00hrs in the morning.
All of us present at that meeting concurred with the Minister of Education that what the Regional Chairman did was illicit, ill-conceived, inexcusable and smacked of reckless and irresponsible behaviour.
I invite the Regional Chairman to apologise to the Minister and move on.
MINISTER NORMAN WHITTAKER, M.P./J.P.
