Many political leaders, particularly presidential hopefuls in Guyana have been known for making grand promises to the population. Oftentimes, such promises have not been kept. In many cases, the paucity of resources or actions of the Opposition have been blamed.
Irfaan Ali, the sitting president of Guyana, while in opposition, is on record in the National Assembly as vociferously representing the need for certain categories of workers to be treated as “important” as it relates to their respective levels of income. He asked whether the teachers, nurses and police men and women were not important.
Bharrat Jagdeo, while opposition leader, is also on record as commending the (then) government for “reintroducing collective bargaining” and urged that the Public Service Union demands a 50% salary increase for public servants. The two men were speaking in the National Assembly during the same parliamentary session, and about the same public servants.
This was during the tenure of President David Granger who led the coalition APNU+AFC government. The Granger government gave Guyana’s public servants a 76% increase in salary over a 4 year period on an exclusively non-oil economy.
Only a few days ago Guyana, the tenth richest country in the world, per capita, with the fastest growing economy in this part of the world passed a 1.146 trillion dollar budget. Irfaan Ali who leads the PPP government could not find the fiscal space in the largest budget in Guyana’s history for salary increases for public servants. Jagdeo, widely believed to be Ali’s boss, has repeatedly said that, were public servants to be paid more at this time, that would lead to rising inflation. Jagdeo is a former president of Guyana and now serves as PPP general secretary and second Vice President of Guyana.
Thousands of teachers in Guyana have just completed three successive days of strike action and public demonstration, demanding a living wage. The strike continues and is likely to last until their demands are met.
Spare headed by the Guyana Teachers Union, the country wide strike has received support from the Guyana Public Service Union and at least one Caribbean Union. Many expect the GPSU to join the industrial action, since its members are confronted by the same set of circumstances, which include an out of control cost of living crisis.
Have Ali and Jagdeo suffered memory loss as it relates to their official position on the matter of public servants’ wages while in opposition? Or are Ali and Jagdeo duplicitous?
Did Ali and Jagdeo knowingly, and shamelessly speak convenient untruths to the workers of this country just to get their vote?
Surely, on this occasion, neither resource paucity nor opposition action can be blamed for the PPP’s failure to pay a living wage to Guyana’s public servants.
The teachers continue their struggle for a better quality of life. Meanwhile, the PPP JagAli administration has moved to propaganda, labeling the strike “racist” and “political”, while teachers call it action in the interest of their “bread and butter.”
