Aug 12, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column Kaieteur News – The strike of public-school teachers has torn another gaping hole in the fabric of Guyana. The ancient tug-of-war between politics and clean purposes, race and fairness, has been given yet another lease on life. A distressing local existence is what Guyanese have always known.
Teachers have endured a torrid time, and their traumas continue without letup. When is the last time that any citizen in this country, in this grand new era has heard anything changing by six percent? It could be called the opening gambit, if this were a game of chess. It is life, and a hard one that no one should ever mistake for a game.
If it is a game, then it is one that Guyanese have lost, regardless of their seasons. In a time of lavish, exuberant abundance, teachers are treated to the scrap of six percent that is touted as a hospitable greeting. Somebody must be mad, and I know that it could not be me.
GHK Lall There was six percent from the government to start the ball. As lowballs go, there are few lower. A finger poked in the eye with an insulting grin as company.
Take that and do what pleases. The teachers found no such element in the six percent that the PPP Government laid so insolently on the table. By way of an aside, if my favourite Venezuelan, Nicolas Maduro, could describe Guyana’s head of state with that exact word and not a peep came out of his people, then describing the government’s paltry six percent off.