I CAME across a public Facebook post by David Patterson (together with associated comments under posts made by others) bemoaning his dissatisfaction with the political or public service appointments made to “cross overs,” who recently left opposition ranks to pursue activism with the PPP.
David Patterson should be the last person to speak on such an issue when he has a sordid track record while he wielded power between 2015 to 2020. While a member of cabinet and a powerful decision maker in the AFC, Patto was part of a savage supercilious middleclass, that believed they were the only ones deserving of quality political spoils. I have always argued that at the time when AFC acquired state power, the party had in its executive, pound for pound, more qualified people in its second-tier leadership than both the PPP and PNC.
What is Patto’s track record given the asset at his disposal? As minister, he made four appointments of party activists. One lady was appointed charwoman, one driver, a foundation member who was part of the party’s central executive and a member since the launch of the party, was hired as an overwatch for cleaning drains and trenches, the fourth was the chairman of the AFC region 4 executive, employed as secretary to a dysfunctional ministerial committee; all earning $180,000 or less.
Patto later formed a programme called Community Organised for the Restoration of the Environment (CORE) initiative. Under this programme he hired twenty teams of about three persons (many were activists) across the country, their chief task: cut grass and clean gutters. That is how Patto and his buddies in the AFC saw those who toiled in the ranks of the party, only worthy of menial jobs. If core activists couldn’t fit into this menial rotation there was no place for them. This very David Patterson has the gall to make post about the quality of appointments the PPP is making; if this isn’t the epitome of a forked tongue then I don’t know what is.
Patto was a member of the gang of seven in the AFC, five of whom displayed a shameless snob of those not within that middleclass cabal. There were two standouts, Moses Nagamootoo and Khemraj Ramjattan, who did not participate in the naked constructive debilitative condescending ostracism and strategic disenfranchisement of highly qualified core activists; many who were there at the founding of the party. These two gentlemen demonstrated that they understood they had a duty and responsibility to activists. It should not be lost on us that both came from the PPP. All (without exception) recognisable state jobs and visible state board appointments of AFC activists were made either by Nagamootoo or Ramjattan.
This brings me to Raphael Trotman. Though he made some appointments, none were visible or weighty state functionaries. The very moment Trotman was appointed Minister, his personal friend and confidant was appointed ministerial adviser, and the daughter of a minister was quietly given a mid-level position. Later the governance portfolio was shifted from Nagamootoo, and he inherited a senior staff who was the wife of an activist and later became involved in party activism. Beyond that, he employed a driver/security and three others, who came to party meetings and shed real tears about how their life was falling apart due to lack of earnings. Those were low level compassionate hires.
Cathy Hughes made about four hires, she shamelessly hired three persons from the molto-creole middle-class to substantial positions in her ministry, none of whom had any part in AFC activism. The fourth was a mercy hire after the activist literally cried and begged for a job because a close relative fell seriously ill and financial resources had dried up. Dominic Gaskin employed the sister of a minister and Sherod Duncan for six-month stints in non-substantial jobs. Noel Holder and Valerie Garrido-Lowe didn’t even bother themselves, even in the slightest, with placement for activists at the lower levels much less senior and substantial state jobs.
That is the whole story of Patto and the AFC, yet Patto can find the temerity and barefaced hubris to comment on the quality of state jobs given to those who defected to the PPP. David Patterson is a shameless hopeless soul, forever banished to being a pesky political cipher and throttlebottom who content himself with making nitwitted social media posts to fish for a few likes, reactions and comments to self-assure of some sort of political relevance which the voting public have definitively banished into the pasture of political nonentity.
If the PPP is hesitant to rush “cross overs” into sensitive state jobs, why would any sensible person fault them for proceeding with caution? People who come to a new political movement must take time to build relationships and political trust. The PPP has solid political reasons for not indiscriminately sharing out appointments to people who simply crossed the floor deep into political campaigning or after government is secured. What reason did Patto and his AFC middle-class buddies have for ignoring a large segment of qualified young activists who stood with the party since its formation?
In contrast, the AFC ministers ran headlong into their ministries and used the same confidential secretaries, close men, administrators, agency heads and high state officials left in place by the PPP, while their own loyalists were butting around to make ends meet; this is unheard of in political science or practical politics anywhere in the world. Essentially, the PPP apparatus never really left government in 2015. There was no caution from the AFC; they did not even appoint understudies, deputies or shadows. They kept in place some key PPP leftovers, lock stock and barrel, the result, they are out of government after the most precipitous ignominious fall. Now today Patto wants the PPP to run headlong into reinstating Granger’s apparatus via crossover APNU+AFC activists. The smallest child knows that is not good politics; it does not happen anywhere in the world.
Sensibly, the PPP did not leave their long-standing qualified cadre on the sidelines. If the crossovers are with the PPP for the long haul, they should not have a problem doing their small part to advance the party’s mission while being absorbed over time into an incrementally growing government.