Truth must not be interwoven with political spin

Dear Editor,
LESLIE Ramsammy’s letter to the Editor in the Kaieteur News of September 2, 2018, “Nagamootoo has betrayed sugar workers and is now betraying teachers,” continues to be part of the dishonest narrative carried out by his party in its effort to mislead Guyanese.
But more importantly, that dishonest narrative is directed towards its constituents as it desperately scrapes every dirty barrel to besmirch efforts at rebuilding Guyana by the coalition A Partnership for National Unity+ Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government.

Editor, I hate liars,especially when they are politicians. And even though it is said that politicians generally do lie, there are some who are extremely dangerous, for what their lies are intended to do is subvert the national truth, for the ends of power.

I can understand a politician seeking to present a case, for and on behalf of his particular party’s support base, but to intersperse that case with so-called data intended to mislead, is as egregious as it is morally dishonest, constituting a threat to peace. This cannot bring any credibility to our national conversation.

And, since 2015, the media has been awash with a brand of this dangerous human defect.
A glaring example of this continuous political trickery is found in Ramsammy’s letter. In one of his paragraphs, he wrote, “In 1999, the PPP had agreed to a task force for public servants’ salaries. The PPP at the time was agreeable to a salary of 5-8 per cent, arguing that any increase above 5 per cent would stress the budget. But the Task Force recommended 31% across-the-board. The PPP respected the recommendation and implemented it.”

Editor, that is the direct quote from Ramsammy’s letter, which is a big piece of spin on a very serious industrial crisis in 1999, which pushed the country to its second longest industrial face-off with the state; a general strike of 57 days.

There was no amicable around-the-table discussion between government and trade union over wage demands, as Ramsammy would want readers to believe. For he has deliberately omitted that talks between the two sides had broken down after repeated stonewalling on the part of the government, causing the union to begin industrial action at midnight on April 30, 1999, which lasted for 57 days.

There were protest marches led by the Public Service Union, which saw the state unleashing violence on the striking workers, with a tear gas attack on nurses protesting in the vicinity of the Supreme Court building still etched in my memory.

The strike ended after an agreement to proceed to arbitration, which was chaired by Dr. Aubrey Armstrong, a management consultant.

Public Servants were given a 31% wage increase in 1999, and a 26.6% rise in 2000, compliments of the arbitration’s decision. Thus, any “Task Force recommendation” of 31%, as described by Ramsammy as being accepted by his then government, had to have been the Dr. Armstrong-led arbitration, the other members of which were Dr. Gobind Ganga and Dr. Clive Thomas.

Of course, the then president stated his concern over the huge increase in the public service wages bill, as there was also a concurrent dispute with teachers that resulted in a similar resort to arbitration process that stipulated 10% for the educators in 1999, and 12% in 2000.

These significant increases, it is believed, were what may have probably led to a freezing of employment within the Public Service. This would have also led to the destruction of the collective bargaining process by the then PPP/C government, ushering in the now infamous five per cent wages imposition that was done in December. After the 1999 industrial action, the government refused to engage the GPSU on wages discussions.

Elsewhere in Ramsammy’s desperate missive, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo is accused of “betraying” both sugar workers and teachers by his “silence”; he has also transposed the accusation to President David Granger as “continuing the assault” on sugar workers “by not addressing the non–payment of their severance…” He has also alleged that the President refuses “to intervene to stop the teachers strike.”

Sadly, Ramsammy must be reminded that neither he nor any of his PPP/C colleagues have any moral grounds on which to speak on sugar workers and the collapse of their industry. Not after the PPP/C’s destruction of one of Guyana’s key industrial sectors, and leaving the socio-economic mess for the coalition government to clean up. He should be aware by now that there is a secure livelihoods programme for both affected workers and their communities, in addition to the fact that the last tranche of severance pay will be paid before year-end.

No. This is where I shall end on responding to a politician whose missives are always riddled with half-truths and pernicious lies. As a politician, he continues to be dishonest, and it is not worth any good time responding to such deception.

My question is: does not he and others of his ilk have any shame for their attempts at attempting to bully and hoodwink the nation into accepting the odour of their opinions, which they emit ever so often in pages of sections of the media? Is this the best that they can do with so much time at their disposal?

That the Ramsammys of this world can continue along their merry but dark lane of political deception, is because of the perception of the well-known fading memory view of a society, with the constituents/supporters of his party especially, failing to demand answers for seminal national issues such as the tragedy of GuySuCo.

Regards
Earl Hamilton

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