A myriad of problems and an absence of integrity

Oct 26, 2008 Features / Columnists, My Column

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Problems abound in the society. Not a day goes by without someone in the society having failed with officialdom, deciding to seek the help of the media.

From early morning my telephone would ring and a voice at the other end would say something like this. “Mr Harris? You don’t know this voice but I have a problem.”

These problems range from almost non-existent electricity supply, to water problems to flooding to garbage disposal and more often than not, to other sanitation problems.

Sometimes the people would be complaining about the highhandedness of officialdom and sometimes the dishonesty of people put in charge of the welfare of others.

This past week my great aunt—she is 87 and not seeing too well—who lives alone in Charlestown, found herself dwelling in a sea of effluent.

Someone’s septic system backed up and the effluent simply flowed into her yard. Numerous calls to City Hall yielded nothing. It was as if her problem was the least of the council’s woes.

The human body has a way of adjusting, so after a while she failed to detect the obnoxious odour that has permeated her home, but anyone who visits pays the shortest visit and disappears, making a mental note not to visit Aunt Lucille again.

There is the case of the people who get astronomical light bills although nothing in the world could show how they consume that volume of electricity.

The bill comes for a whopping $500,000 and the person uses every bit of will power to avoid fainting or simply running mad.

The consumer takes the bill to the headquarters of GPL and gets a fancy answer. Sometimes a kind cashier would say that it could be a computer error as though the computer has a mind of its own and makes mistakes.

There is a promise to see that the situation is corrected but the next bill arrives with the exorbitant charge and another sum for the most recent period of consumption.

There are times when the exorbitant sum would be removed but some people have been told that they have to pay the charge then protest. In this day and age, I ask myself, where would people find that money? And if they do when, are they going to get a refund?

The truth is that they never do. The power company has a way of informing them that the excess charge is credited to their account.

This means that the power company, if it deposits that money, makes money on the extra charge while the consumer is out of pocket.

A common complaint has to do with land. In these days when people are desperate to acquire land, many people would go to the Ministry of Housing and would be issued with something that affords them a plot. But quite often people find that they are not the only ones given that plot.

In one case there could have been murder had good sense not prevailed. The parties went back to the Housing Ministry only to be told that they would be given another plot and no explanation for the snafu. If they persist in getting an answer, they are insulted and threatened.

Sometimes I am asked to investigate and I find that there was some collusion between the people inside the Ministry and some of the potential homeowners. The plot of land is sold under the counter. I have not heard of any prosecution for such acts of blatant corruption.

Perhaps the most serous of all is the case of a young woman whose responsibility it is to test people for HIV/AIDS. Just this past week I learnt that this individual actually sells results to the person taking the test for $10,000.

This at first glance would sound stupid but an investigation revealed that the individual who pays the $10,000 is actually HIV positive but gets a certificate stating that he or she is HIV negative.

This is frightening, especially in light of the campaign by the Health Ministry that people should be tested so that they could know their status.

In my philandering days I would have been a certain victim because I might have gone with a woman who would have produced a certificate informing me that she is ‘clean’ when the truth is far from that.

I must now wonder how many cases of such dishonesty exist and how many people have been infected because of a corrupt individual. The story came to light recently on West Demerara, but the officials have not acted up to the time of writing.

What I do know is that one of the supervisors was trying to keep the thing quiet despite advice to act quickly because of the danger the action of this dishonest individual poses to the rest of the society.

I am now forced to ask myself about the integrity of the people entrusted with the health of the nation. When I spoke about this recent discovery, one of my colleagues actually said to me that this is nothing strange.

It is therefore not surprising that the United States embassy insists on its own people to do tests for potential immigrants. I know of cases where one relative actually took the test for another who happened to be infected.

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