The GRA’s Camp Street complex

The disclosure that the complex on Camp Street housing the offices of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) seemingly poses a threat to the safety and health of the authority’s employees should not come as a complete shock to the public. The building was never erected with the GRA in mind in the first place; there was and still is much controversy associated with locating the GRA in that particular neck of the woods given all of the various traffic and other considerations associated therewith.

The decision to utilize the building for GRA operations was seen by many at the time as simply a means of providing a rent to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS). Clico had erected the structure, but had never occupied it, and after the insurance giant’s collapse, at the end of 2011 it had been bought by NIS for $600 million. There does not appear to have been any careful investigation as to whether the building was fit for purpose, in terms of GRA’s requirements, and most importantly, whether it was structurally sound and waterproof. As it is, despite its relatively brief period of occupancy, the issue of leaks in the building is a matter about which staff and visitors alike have been complaining for some time now. This has been ignored by government.

Chairman of the GRA’s Board of Directors Mr Rawle Lucas says he is concerned about the structural integrity of the building, a remark which may or may not be linked to reports of cracks in the structure in the wake of the earth tremor of a few weeks ago. There is also the assertion that the building “leaks like a sieve when it rains.” Taken together, the two sets of observations point unerringly to a conclusion that there are risks, potentially serious ones, associated with its continued use as the GRA Secretariat. There can be no good excuse for ignoring this development.

Successive governments have remained largely indifferent to the physical conditions of the premises in which their employees work. Public servants in some state offices have been known to share spaces with tomes of dusty archival material that have been in the same places for decades and which are mostly gotten rid of by periodic fires. Physically defective state-occupied buildings are usually not known to be remedied with any great haste. Rotting stairways and loose floorboards had become commonplace in some buildings housing ministries though, over time, some effort has been made to remedy that situation. The physical state of several state-run schools has, for decades, been nothing short of scandalous.

These are not matters that appear to have unduly troubled too many ministers, permanent secretaries (whose work spaces are usually appointed) and the like over the years and this newspaper is not aware of any study that has been undertaken with a view to seeking to determine the impact of unsafe and unhealthy working environments on the well-being of state employees.

To return to the matter of the GRA building, serious questions arise regarding the dichotomy between the millions of tax dollars spent on rendering the building suitable for occupation by the authority under the previous administration, plus the monthly rentals and the quality of service which it affords its occupants. Indeed, it might be more than a little helpful to secure the ‘take’ of Commissioner General Khurshid Sattaur on this matter since the entire episode unfolded on his watch. Was he aware of the problems that Mr Lucas is now highlighting and if he was, what exactly did he do about them?

Mr Lucas has rightly pointed out that there can be no question of subsuming the safety and health of the GRA’s employees beneath the importance of getting on with what, admittedly, is the vitally important work of the authority. That is a particularly pertinent point given the proclivity on the part of our governments to trot out what are often highly questionable reasons why initiatives to remedy problems that have to do with the welfare of people have to be postponed. The issue raised by Mr Lucas may be a much more serious one than we might suspect and while we accept that the continued smooth running of the GRA and the integrity of its records is a matter of national importance, it is perhaps timely to remind the government that so too are the health and well-being of the authority’s employees.

Government has responsibility under the law for overseeing safety and health conditions in workplaces on the whole. There is evidence that in the matter of mandatory workplace inspections, accident investigation and accident reports it has done a decidedly unsatisfactory job, to say the least. If the situation at the Camp Street complex is as bad as it is made out to be, then what we need is not “a long term solution” but remedial action in the shortest possible time. And while we are on the subject of safe state buildings this newspaper has received reports that the new Brickdam building housing the Ministry of Health (the previous one was destroyed by fire) while housing around fifty or so employees only has a single exit. That has to change, not ‘down the road,’ but now.

There is a role here for the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) too. It must immediately engage government on the matter of a deeper professional probe into the issues raised by Mr Lucas with a view to securing the physical well-being of its members. It should require the OSH Department of the Ministry of Social Protection to immediately inspect and pronounce on the suitability of the complex as a place of work and should simultaneously have tests done to determine whether employees have been affected. The GPSU should, too, be at the forefront of a vigorous lobby for the relocation of the GRA with due haste, and the administration must listen and act.