GUYANA | Adam's Notebook - The signs of racial discrimination are ominous

GEORGETOWN,  Guyana, July 21, 2023 - Whether intentional or not, the government is sending a message that it is not keen to deal with any organisation that is predominantly black. In a country like Guyana where the major ethnic groups find it almost impossible to ignore each other, for the government to portray such a tendency is not helping national development.

Recently, the government in a massive missive or document or dossier to the United Nations claimed that the people of African ancestry are part of the national framework. They therefore do not deserve any special treatment, the government contended.

Chairman of the organisation, International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G), Vincent Alexander, told a recent press conference that his organisation told the United Nations about the developments and the treatment of people of African ancestry in Guyana.

He spoke of the withholding of the subvention from the government, a subvention that began with President David Granger’s administration.

He spoke of the marginalization, of the withholding of contracts from black contractors and of the other issues that are so commonplace in Guyana.

This prompted the government to commission a 100-page document by one Joel Bhagwandin. Such was Bhagwandin’s rebuttal that in his dossier he claimed that the government has been giving subventions to the individual members of IDPADA-G.

Alexander said that there has not been one instance of the government making any such donation to an IDPADA-G member.

This is only one instance of the government displaying its abhorrence for black dominated organisations. It is no secret that the government absolutely resents the political opposition.

It has refused to appoint anyone perceived to have come from the ranks of the opposition to state boards or to state commissions.

There have been no talks and President Irfaan Ali is not keen to invite the Opposition Leader to any dialogue. There should have been the appointment of the Chancellor and the Chief Justice. The courts cleared the way but there has been no movement in this direction.

The teachers are no different. Earlier this year President Irfaan Ali announced that he was compiling a package for the teachers whom he described as the moulders of the nation. Months have passed but nothing has come of that pledge.

Meetings with the Guyana Teachers’ Union have yielded precious little. One meeting was called after the union promised strike action.

Ms. Coretta McDonald told the media that she met with Gail Teixeira and the Education Minister Priya Manickchand. She said that she went over issues that were discussed and got a response that the various matters would be expedited.

Now President Ali has opted to meet with the teachers in groups and as individuals. He is eschewing any meeting with the Teachers’ Union. The reason is clear. The union leadership is predominantly black. One of them is a member of the political opposition. That is one red flag to a bull.

Asked whether the president’s action represents a case of divide and rule the union leaders would only say that they are disappointed that President Ali is going back on his word to offer a package worthy of the teachers.

The nurses are no different. Some of them had been granted a package toward the end of last year. Those were the administrators and senior professionals. An examination of the award left a lot to be desired, they said.

So there are others who seem to respect the Guyanese nurses more than we do and are attracting them. The nurses are being represented by the Guyana Public Service Union. The government is not meeting with the GPSU.

That places the public servants in a sticky situation. They too are not getting what they say they deserve.

Nearly a decade ago when the first wave of nurse migration occurred, the then Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, said that there would be accelerated teaching. He spoke of training 1,000 nurses a year.

There was no mechanism, no staff, in place to train such a large number of nurses. Neither were there facilities for the training. Dr Ramsammy said that doctors within the system would help with the training.

He did not recognize that the doctors would be busy making money working at other medical institutions in the country in their off time.

Just the other day, a senior nurse at one of the regional hospitals told me of confronting a nurse aide who could barely read or write. This is the state of affairs because the government is not keen to recognize the need to develop skills in the country.

Why this reluctance? It may have to do with the ethnic composition of the public service and the nursing profession. One must not forget that when the government came into office in August 2020 it immediately shut down the Charles Rosa School of Nursing in Linden.

It went further. It threatened those nurses attending that school with blacklisting if they should try to enter any other nursing institution in the country.

In 2021, the Ministry of Health suspended the latest batch of students to be accepted at the Charles Rosa School of Nursing in Region 10, Upper Demerara/Berbice due to an excess of registered nurses in the Region, the Ministry of Health said

The APNU/AFC Coalition had called the Ministry out for suspending the Registered Nursing Programme and Nursing Assistants Programme without adequate notice and explanation.

The answer was that Region Ten had too many registered nurses. The government did not consider moving some of these nurses to other hospitals. It caused people to believe that the closure of the school was because it was in a predominantly black community and training predominantly black nurses.

In fact, the Ministry of Health said as much. The Ministry went on to assure all Guyanese that it would take the necessary corrective actions to ensure that all the eligible students from the regions across Guyana will be granted access to the Charles Rosa Nursing School training programmes.

So the school, according to reports, is now wrapping up the training of those who were caught up in the closure.

Two years have passed and there has been no new intake.