THE Trades Union Congress (TUC), which, for the duration of the oppressive PNC administration, was a toothless poodle without either a bark or a bite, has, under successive PPP/C administrations, become such a ferocious bulldog that it calls protests and strikes to destabilise and destroy the labour constructs of this country at the whims and fancies of its master puppeteers, the political opportunists who have historically proven that they have no qualms in using their supporters to destroy and decimate their own survival systems.
The TUC, which calmly accepted the PNC’s destruction of the mining industry and its abominable treatment (including retrenchment of thousands of bauxite workers as well as an oppressive menu of measures that kept public servants subjected to an oppressive, rights-negated regimen of punitive conditions of work – either during working hours or in their own time (holidays and weekends, when they were forced to work for free on Hope Estate or in the cane fields), with wages frozen at $2,000 to boot and no social services relief in the various vital social service sectors, such as housing, healthcare, education, etcetera) suddenly found a ferocious voice to destabilize all the people-friendly empowering mechanisms that the PPP/C administration devises to give Guyanese citizens across the board opportunities for upward mobility.
A cursory examination of the history of the TUC would clearly show its primary historic role is that of a (strong)arm for an opposition party; and all its seeming championing of the various branches of the labour force is either to support the political anti-development, destructive actions of that political party, or to generate more income culled from the pockets and kitchens of the public servants and other working groups, whose interests they ostensibly represent but who are being betrayed by their opportunistic advocacy and erroneous positions that are always anti-national, anti-developmental; thus anti-labour, in order that the labour union leaders live princely lifestyles.
Purporting to represent the rights of the labour force, they are agitating against the Government employing prisoners to work, as if Guyana’s prisoners are Martians with no right to a means of earning revenue to support themselves or families. The right to work and earn is a basic human right, and a Government is mandated to take care of every citizen of the land over which it governs.
In a Third World developing country that has to guard its spending and strategise to stretch dollars while obtaining maximum service for public monies spent — especially if the people can benefit in a multiplicity of ways from an allocation — it benefits everyone when all the stakeholders are winners.
Prisoners are people too. They were caught committing their crimes, while many criminals who have been getting away without discovery – including those leaders in the trades unions and political parties who have devised schemes to destroy public and private properties, among other anti-social activities — are enjoying their freedom and the largesse to be had from the Government’s various developmental programmes.
Even while Dale Erskine, retired Director of Prisons, was a young Officer-in-Charge of the Georgetown Prisons, he was creating synergies to make the prison system more aligned to rehabilitation rather than punishment; and he was open to ideas.
Thus it was that when the young wife of a prisoner, who was a trusted friend of Dale Erskine’s from the days when he was a Cadet Officer, was appalled at the treatment of prisoners – as though they were animals rather than people caught in unfortunate circumstances – she discussed with Erskine ways and means by which the system could incorporate new programmes to create a dynamic whereby prison was no longer somewhere merely to lock away people found guilty of aberrant behaviour; but where the inmates could be guided, directed, and encouraged to change their thinking and attitude into more positive, achievement-oriented directions.
That change was a work in progress throughout Erskine’s tenure as initially Officer-in-Charge of the Georgetown Prisons, then Director of Prisons. Thus it was that an education component began whereby black Muslim Brother Abu eventually was in the first batch of students studying for and successfully writing the CSEC exams.
Those with skills were encouraged to develop those skills, until they were so finely-honed that Erskine introduced an annual celebration whereby the products of the prisoners’ work was exhibited for sale at the Prison Sports Club; and the more creative elements were give a stage at the National Cultural Centre to entertain the public. Concrete blocks were manufactured at Timehri, farms were established at key locations, the prison canteen sold the most delicious foods from that produce to members of the public.
The young wife prevailed, and fruits and fruit juices were allowed to prisoners for the first time under Erskine’s humane administration; and prisoners were allowed to purchase foodstuff and other essential commodities from a newly-established prison tuck-shop, so that working wives could leave monies for the days when their busy schedules could not allow their timely delivery of meals; allowing for the formerly rigid rules of remand prisoners having to have meals delivered three times per day or else lose the privilege of self-support.
The changes wrought by the forward, humanistic thinking of Dale Erskine were multi-faceted and transformational, and would benefit prisoners for generations to come. And he did all these things with a quiet simplicity and understated leadership.
One of the programmes he set in motion was the identification and employment of a skills bank of prisoners who were at least risk of escaping or engaging in additional criminal activities, and this has proven to be a success over the years. The prisoners are thus enabled to earn an income, part of which provides for their own needs; the needs of relatives, including young children left defenceless as their mothers struggled to take care of their prerequisites for survival; and some saved for the prisoners own upkeep upon their release, because the world knows that for a person with a prison record to find employment is a difficult feat to accomplish.
The Government is to be commended for the initiative, whereby this resource can be utilised in its drive to clean up the city, which has, under Hamilton Green’s stewardship, become a huge garbage dump and a microcosm of Guyana under PNC administration.
The contract fittingly awarded to the Guyana Prison Service simultaneously addresses several essential national needs. The Government needs to get on with the job for which it was mandated by the citizens of this country — which is to govern for the betterment of country and citizens, and leave the perennial naysayers, doomsayers and destroyers of this nation’s survival systems to do what they do best -– prophesy gloom and doom on the nation, then act to fructify their portentous prognostications.
