GPSU and AG Nandlall in face-off

THE GUYANA PUBLIC SERVICE UNION (GPSU) IS LASHING OUT at Attorney
General Anil Nandalall’s comments blasting the workers’ representative for seeking legal
remedies against the government’s recent controversial decision which virtually mandates
Guyanese must take the covid jab.
Or else!
Nandlall, in a comment published by the private media ‘Inews Guyana’ earlier Friday, excoriated
the GPSU’s decision as “backward to challenge the government’s Gazetted Order in court.
“The impact of what this action seeks, the devastation that it can cause in our country, the
mayhem and chaos that it can perpetuate, the level of death and the disaster that it can permeate,
let all of that sink in and you understand where we are in Guyana and how backward the political
opposition is,” Nandlall complained.
Nandlall who himself is challenging, in court, a vast number of decisions taken by the 2015-2020
David Granger administration, in a strange twist of logic, claimed the GPSU’s resort to the court
of law “is an act that can lead to genocide.”
“This is an attack on human rights. This is human rights tragedy,” Nandlall claimed.
Public service employees who, if one follows Nandlall’s argument, believe it’s their human right
to refuse inoculation, have been locked out from their place of employment, denied access to
state services, and are told they must personally fund taking medical tests to prove they are free
of the virus which have killed some 4.5 million persons worldwide and some 600 in Guyana.
The Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister threw down the gauntlet to the GPSU, which
historically, is a perennial critic of successive Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C)
administrations.

Fearing a smackdown, of what turns out to be a divisive government decision, by the Court,
Nandlall emphasised, “if they win this case, the government must shut down the vaccine
programme.”
The top government law official said, maybe ironically, that in the event the courts siding with
the union, “we must allow everyone to don’t wear masks; we must allow everyone to go into
schools and allow everyone to do what they like.”
Nandlall must have tried being humorously sarcastic when he suggested the government “must
remove all regulatory framework and the country must continue as normal as though there is no
pandemic.”
In a union riposte, the labour body noted the attorney general’s “obvious support of the executive
abuse and disregard of people’s constitutional rights is not surprising since we have repeatedly
experienced his double standards and lack of criticism of his colleagues by (not) challenging
their conduct in acting in conflict with the laws which were brought to his attention on several
occasions.”
The GPSU censured Nandlall distorting and discrediting “the views expressed and thoughts…of
the unions and maliciously makes statements about persons”.
“For the record, the position is that the GPSU has publicly encouraged its membership and the
general public to be vaccinated with vaccines approved by the World Health Organisation,”
GPSU reminded in a press statement Friday.
“In addition, all persons have been encouraged to continue to take other preventative measures as
outlined by the World Health Organisation such as wearing of mask, sanitization and hand
washing, social distancing”.
“His outburst is in support of that pigheaded posture which has so far resulted in significant
increases in the rate of infection and deaths. We hope that good sense would prevail,” the Union
counselled.

GPSU refused to shift from its belief that no one must be intimidated or forced to be vaccinated
and that COVID-19 tests must be paid for from the public’s purse. The union is also firm that no
worker must not be evicted from their legitimate place of employment by law officers.