Juxtaposition of modernisation and primitiveness

Mar 16, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Cabinet members never miss an opportunity for a speech or a photograph when the private sector opens a new factory, company, restaurant, or store. What happens at these events is truly sickening.
A high-level member of the political directorate from the public sector (Cabinet to be precise) gives a speech about development in Guyana and as usual there is a dig at the private media.
The speech-writers for Mr. Jagdeo must be facing dismissal. It is the same repetitious banality – Guyana is making strides but the private media paints a negative picture of the country.
What these speech-makers really mean is that the progress we see unfolding in Guyana comes from one section only – the business community. By Guyana, the speech-makers really mean the private sector, not Guyana as a whole. The public sphere in this land is not moving and is returning to its primitive state.
Development then in Guyana is not a complete process. How can you open a state of the art hotel when it is situated on a mud road and the guest’s taxi will have to be pulled out of the slush?
President Jagdeo, as he is wont to do, opened up the airport branch of Roti Hut last week by pointing to progress in Guyana and castigating the private media for its constant bad-mouthing of the country. Which progress? Interesting to note is that the Roti Hut is situated inside a building that is managed by the Government of Guyana – the airport. Did anyone step outside the Roti Hut and try to use the public washroom? Was there toilet paper? Was the washroom clean? Did Mr. Jagdeo and his entourage notice how silly was the construction of the departure lounge where the Roti Hut branch is located?
Mr. Jagdeo, of all them would be in a better position to make a comparison with the rest of the world because he is one of the most traveled leaders (at the time of penning this article (Thursday, March 11), he has left the country.
At the Timehri airport, the departure lounge excludes relatives and well-wishers. You have to stay outside and watch through the glass wall. Surely, this cannot be the only idea. Why not allow for the entrance of relatives but have a three feet separation with some decorative ropes where out-going passengers cannot walk through to mingle with relatives?
Plus there will be security on patrol. It allows the departing passengers to chat with their relatives and take photographs while they are waiting in the line to check in. It is truly sickening to see how family members have to elongate their necks and peep like animals through the glassed wall to get a glimpse of their loved ones leaving.
All over Guyana, you see the juxtaposition of the modern private sector and the ossified public sector. A new pizzeria was opened up (Mario’s pizza) right at the junction of Camp and Middle Streets. The Cabinet “stars” were present as they were at the Roti Hut. And as you stepped outside of Mario’s you saw the non-functioning traffic lights. One of these days, we are going to have the hilarious situation where a new spanking building by the private sector is going to be declared open by one of the political monarchs but there will be no audience.
The smell of a rotting carcass of a dog o the road in front of the structure will scare away the guests. These corpses are all over the roadways.
During his speech at the Roti Hut programme, President Jagdeo indicated that the state may get back into the airline business. Most of the attendees would know that the PPP Government a few years back operated an airline company with, Mr. Ramkarran as the Chairman of the Board. It collapsed. What can the State administer?
Certainly not the electricity company! Certainly not the water corporation! Do you know Mr. Jagdeo is an economist and Minister Shaik Baksh has a Masters in Management? The same Baksh was Minister of Water. Yet to date, GWI cannot devise a billing system in a country with one of the world’s smallest populations. The state-owned, Guyoil offers the worst service among filings stations. Where is the functioning sewage system? Where are the functioning traffic lights?
Where are the teachers and furniture in the public schools? Where is the Marriott Hotel? Guysuco is facing collapse. And on top of this miasma, we may return to state-owned airline. There is a circus in Guyana and it is not nice to see.

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