DEMERARA WAVES, FEB 1 --- Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Khemraj Ramjattan says his party has been dealing with increasing calls by supporters to be given jobs following its victory at last year’s general and regional elections.
“I had to tell them that we just can’t be just knocking off people to go and fit them in,” he told Demerara Waves Online News.
The AFC+A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) clinched 33-seat victory at the May 11, 2015 general elections, leaving the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) occupying the 32 opposition seats in the National Assembly.
Ramjattan, who is a Vice President and Minister of Public Security, said many of them who are demanding government jobs were unqualified while others were unwilling to settle for low salaries. “I know of some of them who made the quarrel, they are not qualified for some of these positions and you have to be brutally frank and tell them and some who felt that they were qualified, when you indicate to them the salary scales paid by our public service they backed away and they say they didn’t know,” he said.
The AFC Leader held out hope that in another three years with increased revenue from gold and new earnings from oil, they would get higher paying government jobs. “Some of them still vex with me, as leader, but as a politician what do you do, you go to appreciate that you got challenges and you have to tell the people about the challenges,” he said.
Across at APNU, there have been rumblings among many persons, including young educated youths, who had campaigned hard for the APNU+AFC coalition that they have not received any jobs or they have been placed in areas in which their qualifications are not being properly utilized.
Rather, they have said, that the government is being stacked by many overseas-based ex members of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF).