Dear Editor,
ALLOW me to correct a piece of misinformation that was carried in the Stabroek News of August 1, 2017, under the caption “GPSU parties should agree to read from the same page”. This is necessary because I feel that the readers must be aware of the smut campaign that is being waged against the leadership of the union and must be properly informed. You would have covered the GPSU’s press conference of Thursday July 27, 2017, where the GPSU expressed its disappointment at being invited to discuss wages, salaries and allowances for 2017, when the commitment was given that the 2016 negotiations were not finished and that the negotiating teams should complete 2016. You would have had photographs of the GPSU team at the press conference and these were carried both in the print and electronic media.  Despite all of this, there was a letter by E B John in the Stabroek News which deliberately intended to mislead the readers with a set of misinformation as follows, and I quote.

“His articulate exposition was made in the equally eloquent silence of the President of the union sitting alongside him. One wondered how many viewers (including the legally informed decision-makers) recognised the schizophrenic status of the main employment officer of the Government, no less than the chairman (ag.), of the Guyana Public Service Commission, in plain view, unrepentant about explicitly identifying himself as the GPSU’s active vocalist.”
Mr Editor, at the time of the press conference, Mr Yarde was attending The World Credit Unions Conference in Vienna, Austria, Europe six time zones away. Hence, it was physically impossible for Mr Yarde to be sitting next to me at the press conference.  It seems to me that Mr John has a personal grudge against Mr Yarde for him to hallucinate like that and seized that opportunity to launch a salvo at the chairman (ag.) of the Public Service Commission. In fact, we saw him doing this before when Mr Yarde was appointed Chairman (ag.) of the Public Service Commission.

Mr John has a peeve with Mr Yarde being the Chairman (ag.) of the Public Service Commission. He voiced it before in his article: “We are caught in an injudicious system” in the Stabroek News of May 25, 2017. It was pointed out then that the appointment of Mr Yarde to the PSC and later as Chairman (ag,) was done in keeping with the Constitution of Guyana – the supreme authority — in a letter to the Editor by Ms Dawn Gardener on May 29, 2017.  Mr John needs to realise that the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana is sacrosanct and leaves no room for personal fetish as Mr John seems to want.   Mr Editor, Mr John’s conduct exposes who is schizophrenic. This unmerited, unethical and unprofessional behaviour seems to occur at any time that Mr John feels he has the opportunity to denigrate Mr Yarde. This behaviour must be exposed and condemned by an informed public.
Regards
Mortimer Livan