GECOM’s sacrificial victim

Propitiations?
The long knives are out for Gocool Boodhoo in GECOM. Long seen as a man who didn’t cower before the hotbed of opposition connivance and partisanship in the Secretariat, the opposition have made it bold to declare they’re not backing him for the renewal of his contract which is due.
The opposition have long made known their dissatisfaction with Gocool – and Chairman Steve Surujbally. In fact, even while the commission attempted to follow the rules to ensure the last election results were accurate, the opposition marched in front of the PRIVATE RESIDENCES of the two gentlemen and demanded their ouster! After convincing their supporters they would win the elections to bring them out to the polls, they couldn’t wait for their ‘coronation’. Well, we all know they didn’t succeed then. But that didn’t mean they gave up: they just bided their time. And we arrive at the renewal of contract issue.
Now Gocool Boodhoo is simply the most experienced person on the GECOM front. Period. And it’s because of this they want him out: there’ll be no one to prevent their intended hanky-panky. The three commissioners nominated by the opposition claim they’re rejecting Boodhoo’s contract renewal because the man made a computational error towards the fag end of the last elections.
Can you imagine blaming a man for making an error in mathematical analysis – after he’s been up for three days continuously and under tension both at the GECOM headquarters and at his home, to deliver the elections’ results. Or else? Point of the matter is that there’s a system in place with cross-check mechanisms that caught the error. And there was no harm done. Gocool Boodhoo is part of a system.
The chairman made the important point that there’s absolutely no evidence that the computational error was more than just that: an error that anyone can make.
So Boodhoo is to be hung? The commissioners nominated by the opposition are unfortunately acting as if they are the ‘opposition commissioners’. They’re supposed to do what is best for the commission. They are ensuring that the commission will be politicised – because the commissioners nominated by the government will have to correctly reject the spurious opposition rationale.
The decision will then come down to the chairman, who has an original and a casting vote. He has to do the right thing and retain Boodhoo. He should know that if he goes along with the present venality, the long knives will soon be out for him.
City Hall no-nonsense
Carol Sooba is another person who’s not surprisingly raised hackles (and worse) since she was appointed as the Town Clerk (ag.) “And why not?” the opposition’s crying! Finding a veritable Augean Stable – both literally and figuratively – in the council which is in charge of running our capital’s affairs, she’s had the gall to demand that people actually do the jobs they’re paid to do. And without bribes.
This, of course, is a revolutionary concept to the opposition – especially to its most senior executive – Hamilton Green. Government and public posts are sinecures offered as reward for opposition services rendered in the political realm.
Green exemplifies the species perfectly.
More often than not, he’s on some junket or other at either the public’s expense or some foreign sponsor impressed with his ‘mayoral credentials’. He’s been a mayor for almost twenty years, he boasts. He doesn’t mention that he’s never had to face a re-election. He should pass over half of all the gifts he collects to the Committee on Local Government that has bungled the rules for new elections for over a decade.
Tell it like it is
Old time human resources manager Nowrang Persaud had the gall to tell it like it is: Guyanese workers better shape up or they’ll have to ship out in a globalised world. Expect the TUC to demand his head.