Minister Lawrence’s statements raise rule of law issues

Dear Editor, I am inspired by Clairmont Lye’s letter which you published yesterday, to follow my friend and civic hero where angels fear to tread, and comment on the latest controversy caused by Minister Volda Lawrence.

Both you and (ironically) Bharrat Jagdeo have shown how her approach breaks various laws and insults the Constitution itself. In other public reactions so far, I have seen no allusion to the fact that she as political head of a Ministry assumes absolute unilateral power over the employment of doctors and others in the Public Service. For a Minister to take direct control over public hiring and firing decisions disregards the Constitutional Councils and Commissions and legally established procedures of administering Government employment. So far without any accountability.

Quite aside from the PNC criterion upon which she has stated whom she “could give work to,” doesn’t she see that this raises Rule of Law issues? Or does she – and the PNC, and the entire Cabinet – just not give a damn?

But we must forgive her anyway, because, like all our politicians, her mental process is focused solely on power, at any cost to the ordinary people. Let’s go on living with that, and join Clairmont Lye in recognising her one unusual performance of honesty.

Yours faithfully, Gordon Forte