If ministers now need an educational upgrade they were the wrong choices for their jobs

Dear Editor, The disgraceful and disgusting rip-off of the poor struggling taxpayers, the blind loyal voters, continues. The plundering does not exempt one government or another; the gouging knows no limit, and the lavish selfhelp manifests no shame. The latest in an ongoing litany of political barbarisms is the funding of higher education for the new cabal.

I will always be for education and self-improvement; the higher the better, the more lauded. But those who so aspire must do so on their own time and on their own dime. Ministers, who are reputedly very nice and very principled people, must come to their portfolio and charge equipped and ready to contribute, and contribute meaningfully, measurably, and memorably. Well, the only things memorable are the enormous amounts being spent on their advanced learning right now, the lush fringes, and mouthwatering perks that are so much a part of political success and political connectivity in this country. This is what has always been the shoddy, sickening case; the rich rewards of political office and political linkages flaunted in the face of an increasingly jaded citizenry. Every time, the well situated seize one of these plums for self, it means that a more deserving, but unattached, citizen is denied.

Editor, expensive education of this kind and at those levels reluctantly identified has to be representative of extended political junkets under the unpersuasive cover of academic necessity. I assert that a doctorate is a wonderful thing, but get it before, if it is found that crucial; in the context of Guyana, it is as needed as nuclear physics or rocketry engineering. I submit that Ms Wiltshire is deserving of her scholarship; on the other hand, I do not know anything about Ms Roopnaraine to comment responsibly and fairly as to whether such is due and fair.

Now when it becomes known that ministers and (former) senior public servants are so handicapped in the performance of their duties, then what is the purpose of their presence in sensitive positions in the first place? How come they are discovered to be so pivotally lacking only now and in dire need of heavy duty enhancement? If the additional taxpayer funded education is so vitally necessary to them functioning well, then I submit that they were the wrong choices for the jobs assigned.

When all of these pretending servant-leaders (that’s a cheap tired joke, isn’t it? Except that it is an expensive one depending on the discovery of the day) should be out in the sun, rain, and mud serving the public, they are off wintering in European climes. Having said this, I must take back part of it. None of them are out there in the Guyanese wastelands, mucking around and trekking amidst the poor, lowly unwashed masses. Rather, they are trawling around in their heavily tinted (duty free) airconditioned luxury imports, oblivious and uncaring as to the needs or consternations of the suffering people. That is an unwritten part of their job description, living it up on taxpayer largesse.

This is the good life with political precedents galore over the years and decades. It is the PPP redux; it is the sick house, dead house and wake house of politics. This is one great sumptuous banquet for the newest cabal in town. No wonder the others are so snarling and riotous.

Guyanese have an old saying: like cockroach eat out yuh conscience. Clearly, the local political elites can claim exclusive rights to the visitations of such cockroaches and the resulting disappearance of conscience. It is but one aspect of the range of the unchanging sameness of change in this accursed place. I wonder what could be next? Yours faithfully, GHK Lall