Coil: What dey does really do? – de others

by Vidyaratha Kissoon

A frustrated Burnham lover said that his Minister friend told him that “some of de public servants like is only now dey seeing wuk.” I remember another Minister in another time making similar claims. Easy to blame the public servants when politicians have to get down to real wuk.

Last week, the meditation on the Office of the Prime Minister extended to the other ministers.

The Coil lights up this week on the news that the Minster of Social Cohesion Amna Ally has gotten involved in the Region 5 janjhat . The meditation continues.

Hon. Noel Holder,  Minister of Agriculture

Lamaha Street near Camp Street, and the traffic is heavy. A man with a set of chips on his cart is pushing through. He says he has all kinds. The Breadfruit chips are thin, almost transparent. The chips crumbled nicely , no harm done to teeth and gums. I am annoyed that I did not take the man’s name on the cart and find out his location.

I didn’t realise that eating Breadfruit chips was a revolutionary stance against the PPP

The PPP is in favour of cassava chips and plaintain chips.. heck they even were going to build factories for chips. But Cheddi and Janet’s disciples do not approve of Breadfruit chips because it seems President Granger might have had some from the same man I bought from.

This is the madness which any Minister of Agriculture must navigate. Venezuela it seemed focussed on oil without worrying about food security. Agriculture these days , like everything else, is to be about making large amounts of money.   The Minister believes that Agriculture is a tool to deal with youth employment

Farming does not grab attention getting as other work.

140 youths did the STEM Robotic Camp . Two of them have their pictures on the front pages of the papers.There is news that 15 young people graduated from an agro-processing training. There are no pictures of any of them in any of the papers.

Young people who dress up in suit and tie and who do things like fashion, music, technology, sports entrepreneurship are more likely to be promoted in the media and on bill boards than young people who make struggle to make a living out of growing food. Young people who kill and murder are more likely to make news than young people who try to make a success out of farming the land.

A young man who had a distinction in Agri Science at CSEC was cynical about the whole teaching and SBAs – “yeah.. we learn how to show pictures of things which we didn’t do’. He did try his hand at some farming after ‘but after the first crop, I didn’t bother’.

The beauty pageant contestants don’t list farming as an occupation, or even a hobby.

There is nothing from the Minister of Agriculture, no sense of how the talk of the diversification of crops will be implemented, of engaging the labourers from the sugar industry in planting other things. 

The push for Oil, it seems is more exciting and transformative than say Region 10 becoming a region which has transformed from dependence on Bauxite and mining . The Ministry of Agriculture website gives prominence as it has always done to news, rather than initiatives which can strengthen citizens’ interest and participation in farming and food security.

Hon. Ronald Bulkan,  Minister of Communities

The Minister seems low key. The Local Government Elections were held. Some of the Regional Executive Officers and Town Clerks seem to make more news than the Minister and the Ministry generally. The Haags Bosch landfill contract generated controversy. The Minister was recently visiting villages in Region 9 – listening to concerns and sharing out some goodies and gifts. It isn’t clear from the reports of the visits whether the goodies are linked to any of the concerns raised by the villagers. There is no Ministry website to see how the Ministry will be responding to each of the concerns raised, and by when. There might be work going on which is not reported, as there are no pickets and protests reported either.

Hon. Valerie Patterson Adams, Minister within the Ministry of Communities with responsibility for Housing

The Central Housing and Planning Authority is responsible implementing the housing policies. There are all kinds of stories about the investigations and staff changes. It isn’t clear what the current housing policy is of the Administration. The CH&PA is preoccupied with fixing the problems it inherited.

Somebody though, has to generate the policies that turn housing schemes into communities. Minister Patterson has work cut out, as her colleague Minister Lawrence left it up to the CH&PAto work out the problems of alcohol within communities.

What other unexpected duties are in store for the Ministry as it relates to housing?

Hon. Dawn Hastings Williams,  Junior Minister,  Ministry of Communities,

A google search reveals that the last time Minister Hastings-Williams was in the news was a report that she was hospitalised. There doesn’t seem to be any other news since then of the Minister’s work.

Hon. Dr. Rupert Roopnarine, Minister of Education

Dr Roopnarine is a well educated man. He talked nicely at the beginning about action and so , not to be irrational about things related to “high level of illiteracy, the large number of school drop-outs and the constantly falling standard of the University of Guyana”

But months have passed, well maybe it is too soon to say months and months.

Teachers can still beat children in Dr Roopnarine’s managed schools. There are no reports that teachers will work on non-violent forms of discipline. There are no guarantees that any of the children leaving Dr Roopnarine’s managed schools will know to read and write, there is no commitment to literacy and promoting literacy.

And the graduates of the University with the low standards, seem to have migrated in large numbers.

There is no strong policy on remedial education or adult education and managing drop out rates. There are things like consultations and the commission of inquiry and so. But maybe it is too soon for months and months to get any of the action which was promised on education.

Hon. Nicolette Henry, Junior Minister,, Ministry of Education Culture, Youth and Sport

A non-PPP supporter who survived the jubilee was vocal. ‘She gotta go’ . It seems the trauma still lingers in many. The Minister has come through the jubilee. There are no commissions of enquiries. National Events will be done in the Ministry of the Presidency. There is a cultural policy to come.. sometime before year end so maybe the work of the Minister will intensify after the policy comes after January 2017. There is a Director of Sports and a Director of Youth. There may be a Director of Culture. Fortunately, citizens organise themselves and do their own cultural activities.

Hon. Winston Jordan, Minister of Finance

The Minister is the Minister of the unapproved travel ban on the students who took loans from UG. Student loans are a big deal.. both he and Hon Jaipaul Sharma, the Junior Minister of Finance were at the opening of the brand new building.

The two Ministers have a difficult task – on the one hand, the forensic audit and the “jail Jagdeo and cronies” project, and the other hand the current state of the economy and the future of Guyana. In October 2015 – NFMU was corrupt. By June 2016, Minister Cathy Hughes was waiting on the NFMU to prove it had not been corrupt.

The strain is probably too much and hence the ‘travel ban’ fiasco. A coalition supporter said that she pictures the Minister of Finance just looking at figures on the spreadsheets and not seeing any people . Is this the reason for adhoc comments about travel ban and fascinating policies about unsolicited waivers for the elderly on drivers licenses and airport taxes?

Is the Ministry of Finance responsible for crafting the 2016 version of the Desmond Hoytes/Carl Greenidge’s ERP? If not them, then who?

Hon. Raphael Trotman, Minister of Natural Resources

The Minister of the promise of Oil, of waiting for Baishanlin Reloaded and managing with fluctuating gold prices.

We can learn from Venezuela, Angola, Trinidad about the problems of depending on Oil.

In a strange move, the President created a Department of Environment and moved it out of the Ministry of Natural Resources. It is as though the agencies under Minister Trotman cannot regulate themselves or function in a regulatory framework.

It is as though the Minister would be responsible for the subtle destruction of the environment to extract the natural resources while the Ministry of Presidency would have to watch man to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Hon. Simona Broomes, Junior Minister, Ministry of Natural Resources

The Minister is active, responsive, moving around the mining areas dealing with Occupational Health and Safety , trafficking and other violations. She had to deal with the dredge issue and calls for her to be removed from the portfolil. The Minister endeared herself to many when she worked over at the Ministry of Social Protection. No conflict of interest there with the dredge, because she was going into work places and checking on records. It was reported that she recovered 59million dollars in wages for workers in seven months. Her replacement, Hon. Keith Scott, Junior Minister, Ministry of Social Protection probably does not want the media to know the good work he is continuing. Maybe Minister Broomes had cleared up the outstanding claims, and so his ability to recover wages for workers is not going to be as high. The Private Sector Commission has issued no statements on meetings with Minister Scott, as it did last November when it said that its members were not aware of Occupational Health & Safety regulations.

Hon. Dominic Gaskin, Minister of Business

Not all businesses are equal and the scrap metal dealers are protested the ban on their business. The President is insisting that people develop their own businesses and create their own jobs. The Ministry has recently published its strategic plan and has committed to several activities. The public can easily monitor the activities to check on the progress.

Hon. Basil Williams, Attorney General & Minister of Legal Affairs

The man who has to share the portfolio for the ‘jail Jagdeo and his cronies’ project, and for fixing the justice system, for dealing with laws and legislation. There is the story about being FATF compliant – and the political back and forth about this. Things like the decriminalisation of marijuana, and the reform of the laws to improve human rights are no longer on the legislative agenda.

Hon. Dr George Norton, Minister of Public Health

Zika, drug shortages, nurse shortages, maternal mortality, CEO and Deputy CEO problems at GPHC, suicide prevention and mental health – the Minister seems a nice man who is overwhelmed by the mess inherited from slap-and-strip bheri’s people. The Minister does not smile much. He looks like a worried and concerned man.

The Ministry of Public Health is probably one of the Ministries which requires accountability at the levels of all the professional department heads and offices.

Guyana should be proud that the provision of free health care is guaranteed. It isn’t easy though as health challenges keep changing.

The Minister is supported by Hon. Dr. Karen Cummings Junior Minister Ministry of Public Health who recently led the Government’s response on the suicide prevention efforts. The National Suicide Prevention Plan for example, which is on the website does not have details of the actions and so which will be implemented. There might be actions which are not reaching the media as much as the reports of suicide.

It seems that the Minister alone is bearing the burden of the Ministry, relieving the professionals and staff at the various units of their accountability responsibilities.

Hon. David Patterson,Minister of Public Infrastructure

Two culverts have been fixed in Subryanville. Minor works when you have to deal airports, roads, bridges, sea defence, stellings, and unhappy contractors. The Minister and Hon. Annette Ferguson ,Junior Minister , Ministry of Public Infrastructure have a huge portfolio . I yearn for pavements to walk on as the roads become more dangerous for pedestrians. It can’t be easy for the Ministers though, to have to get their people to check and recheck all the hundreds of contracts and end up in quarrels of over who did what.

Travelers on David Street would know where the culvert was fixed. The road has not been repaired and it seems to be degrading further – hopefully the road will be fixed properly and the newly installed culvert will not be broken.

And this is a lil wuk, in the larger scheme of all the wuk which has to be done.

Hon. Catherine Hughes, Minister of Public Telecommunications

Information and Community Technology enthusiasts would be glad that there is finally a Minister responsible for the sector. The telecoms liberalisation has come to pass. Minister Hughes has the responsibility now for encouraging Government, businesses and citizens to use the infrastructure to do more than just post selfies and update Facebook and download stuff. Minister Hughes will probably be expected to lead the eGovernment project, and to lead the other projects to make Guyana become like Estonia in the use of ICTs.

It is easy to write about what de Ministers does really do. There is no Minister responsible though for citizens making sure that the Ministers do what they are supposed to do. Each citizen has to be their own Minister for demanding accountability and ensuring good governance.