AS the nation observes 178 years of freedom from chattel slavery, it needs to be said that emancipation is a continuous process and adaptation to values need to be considered based on what takes place today. As the world continues to grow, those who think that because human beings were subjected to horrible conditions in the past, that they have a right, when put in position to do better, to feel they are doing the citizens a favour, they ought not to have a place in government.

In view of the many ills committed against citizens — irrespective of race and other diversity — by the Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar regimes, the APNU+AFC government has a responsibility to correct and avoid repeating same.

Corruption and other forms of lawlessness have been like a cancer eating away the soul of this nation and denying its citizens/workers deserving opportunities to decent standards of living and working conditions. With the PPP/C having been so long in office, persons have come to accept same as a culture in governance and how they should be treated.

What we are witnessing too is that with the APNU+AFC entering office, it does not mean that good governance is being practised and the people are treated with deserving respect, and is also prone to engage in similar misconduct like their predecessors.

Growth in this society requires acceptance, that if it was wrong under the PPP, it cannot be right under the APNU+AFC. If we seriously desire and seek change in the manner in which the business of governance is done, it will be achieved only when persons change from accepting because it is happening under the party/group I put in office, the wrong becomes right. Wrong is wrong and right is right and to bring about what is right the people must stand up, speak out, and condemn today what they condemned yesterday.

The issue of the storage bond for pharmaceuticals that the Cabinet made a decision to review ought to be of concern as to the way it is being handled. The intent of any review is to make sure that not only the truth is being told and justice is being done, but also appears to have been done. The cabinet made the decision to rent the bond. When questions are raised and an inquiry/investigation is commissioned as to the circumstances that led to the decision, the participants in the decision cannot review their own work. It requires an independent group to conduct such an investigation to bring credibility to the findings.

The matter here is not whether the Minister of Public Health misled the National Assembly; it is about the management of the people’s money. The recommendation of the cabinet sub-committee is ludicrous and needs to be revisited. The actions and recommendation by the Prime Minister, Minister of Natural Resources, and Minister of State speak to a group who believe that the people’s money can be treated anyhow and it is enough for the minister involved to apologise to the people.

It is a double standard to engage in independent inquiries in matters on the stewardship of past administrations and those outside of cabinet, but when it comes to members of cabinet, the people’s business is treated as their personal properties. Any credible inquiry into the bond issue has to be done by an independent state agency and the police should have been called in. The failure to do so raises doubts and suspicions about government’s intent and commitment to upholding modern standards of governance.

The issue of Guyanese workers who were wantonly dismissed, suspended and continuously discriminated against by the Bauxite Company of Guyana Incorporated (BCGI) Russian management, while Ministers Volda Lawrence, Keith Scott, Raphael Trotman and Joe Harmon’s actions are sending signals of tacit support is placing the society in a backward step.  The nation is reminded that respecting universal rights and laws are tenets that informed the struggle for and achievement of emancipation.

The continued contempt by this administration for the High Court’s decision to re-issue the correct letter which will enforce Section 1 of the Labour Act is a wrong we must collectively work to make right. Apart from the commitment given to respect the courts once elected, instructively this government comsists of lawyers who, in private practice, would not support such treatment of their clients.

Workers in the sugar industry represented by the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) are today confronted with a GuySuCo management that is not prepared to engage the union on issues that affect the workers’ welfare. It is not lost on me the held perceptions as to the conduct of GAWU during the PNC and PPP administrations. However, should we lose sight of the importance of upholding fundamental principles, a vicious cycle will be created, in that we would see one government discriminating against one section of society, and when another government comes to office discriminating against another section.

These stated references are not freedom but retrograde sets and other forms of oppression. Where Jagdeo and Ramotar held a symposium to address discrimination and the rule of law and have no moral leg to stand on, by the same extension it gives the David Granger/Moses Nagamootoo government no moral leg to engage in similar misconduct. Addressing and correcting deficiencies in society require that spirit of emancipation to be continuously imbued in our people to ensure every Guyanese hold elected leaders accountable and pull them out of the “massa” management syndrome they are bent on retaining, in order that we can collectively be free.