Rowley sending wrong message

It is legal under our Constitution for any Prime Minister to remove any minister, who are employees of the Government, without giving any notice, without any opportunity to address their shortfall, without any warning or caution. But is it progressive, right or fair conduct for a national figurehead and exemplar? It is an unacceptable double standard that the same worker protection procedures which require cautionary letters, several warning letters, and which the private sector is obligated to follow do not apply to the minister reporting to the Prime Minister.

Furthermore, it is unbecoming of any leader of any organisation to have the authority to wake up one morning and without any account to the people who have served, to have the unquestionable authority to summarily remove them.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s conduct calls citizens to attention that we live in an undesirable prime ministerial dictatorship endorsed by a plantation constitution which each incoming Prime Minister has promised to but never amended or modernised. With conduct like this, are we really that free from the shackles that are still on the tip of our thoughts? The fact that all of our Prime Ministers have done this does not make it right. The population has matured and what Dr Eric Williams did then is no longer acceptable conduct today.

Is that the way we want to treat our citizens who have served our nation selflessly? When will our Constitution be amended to prevent dictatorial abuses of power? Will it ever be amended by Rowley? We put Rowley in office to build our national morale, not destroy it. What he has done sends the wrong message to the rest of us and if we are to be free from “mental slavery” it should not ever happen again. Right is right, but this is definitely wrong.

GARY ABOUD via email