Unlucky government part-time workers in Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice, Region 10, and Linden, in particular, have been complaining bitterly that after ten days of work monthly for months and the expected forty-thousand dollars ($40,000) monthly – the initiative which started much later than promised and months after waiting to receive their first pay – some persons have received pay for two, six- and eight-days work even though they have worked far beyond those number of days.
Hundreds of persons were dismissed in Linden alone from government jobs after March 2, 2020, General and regional Elections. The part-time job initiative by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regime was thus badly needed, but badly conceived and badly executed all at the same time. This recipe resulted in additional hardship on the part of the newly employed and chaos and confusion on the various job sites.
It was during a PPP outreach to Pomeroon-Supenaam, Region 1, earlier this year that the initiative was spawned with over a thousand jobs being promised there. Political commentators and economists have remarked alike that the government is seemingly pulling such initiatives and programs “out of a hat” with no sound basis which informs them.
Since Region 1, the initiative has been rolled out to other regions, with still little or no structure in place. In Linden, for instance, we find the unelected Prime Minister’s Representative spearheading the initiative, while the better-manned Regional Democratic Council (RDC), is being side-stepped.
Our publication’s investigation reveals also where workers are sent and their skillsets are of no consequence or whether there is even a need for the workers at the said entity. A police station in Mahaica-Berbice, Region 5, has found itself overrun by workers with no fixed job description. There are so many, there is hardly any seating accommodation for the regular detainees and fixed staff, and thirty new part-time employees have the facility bursting at the seams.
An employed person here with fifteen (15) CSEC subjects could easily find herself cutting grass while a person with no subjects has been sent to schools in East Berbice-Corentyne, Region 6, as Teaching Assistants, even as schools are in summer recess. One such person on condition of anonymity related to our publication, “I don’t even know why I went to school”.
Those who the regime dub “naysayers” attribute vote-buying as the basis for the initiative at its core as Local Government Elections loom. Others argue that the regime needed to sure up its employment numbers. Figures available for the government show that thousands of persons have gone on the breadline since the PPP took control of the reins of power in Guyana. A majority of the unemployed have come from rural areas, the heartland of the regime.
Surly thankful for the work at a time when unemployment is lapping at fifteen present (15%) and grateful for the money when the inflation rate is quickly approaching double digits as well; along with the high cost of living, and a government that has stamped the program with its “Because We Care” mantra, the real success of the initiative yet to be seen as it moves from a one-off activity to a three-year initiative of part-time work.
More, In The Ring.
