Guyana: Lawlessness, chaos and madness in a failed state

Oct 08, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I didn’t know about a certain type of convention on the wharves of Georgetown, whether legal or traditional, until two weeks ago when a story was leaked to me. Containers that come to Port Georgetown are not (I don’t know if they cannot but they are not) opened by GRA officers on the wharves if they are for embassies and Ministries. Such a policy needs to be stopped in relation to the Ministries.
I guess all embassies in all countries enjoy that privilege. I doubt whether the US Government would search incoming diplomatic cargo while seeking exemption from other countries. In the case of Ministries in Guyana, it should cease immediately.
In a land where official corruption is on the same level with the worst offenders in the world, this practice is open to abuse and it has given way to incredible corruption. I was informed by a senior functionary of a certain Ministry that a car came in a container that was officially registered as containing perishable items for that particular Ministry.
Once the container is assigned to a Government institution, GRA personnel on the wharves do not inspect it and it is driven straight to the particular government building. But what GRA officials do not see on the wharves, the workers of the various public sector agencies will. These containers have to be emptied in front of other eyes.
In the case of the car, the cargo was opened late at night. But security and other personnel were around. I traveled to the GNSC wharf on Wednesday morning to do an investigation about this car and found myself standing on top of a goldfield of information.
Do you know the practice of concealing vehicles among other goods destined for governmental institutions is routine stuff?
My sources were laughing when I inquired about the particular car. One of them, with a smile as broad as the dilapidated National Park, said, “Freddie, is now you discover this?”
I went back to my original source that sent me to another Ministry. There I was told that two large flat-screen TVs came in a container last year for one of Guyana’s kings and was hidden among items earmarked for an important public sector organization.
It simply devastates your soul when you see the total breakdown of law, morals, legal guidelines, civilized procedures in the operations of the Government of Guyana. I say without fear of contradiction that no journalistic investigator can watch me in the eyes and tell me that they are not psychologically traumatized at what they see of what Guyana has become.
I say with an ocean of unambiguousness, the moral perversities, illegalities and procedural nastiness that I see that have overtaken the administrative running of Guyana would never (I repeat, would never) have taken take place under President Burnham much less Desmond Hoyte.
The more places and people your journalistic journey takes you to, the more you see what a cake-shop this country has become under its present dictators.
A Region Three official took me to a school and showed me a section that has been rebuilt three times in five years at the cost of dozens of millions. On each occasion the contractor does sloppy work, and gets another contract to do more sloppy work? What’s happening?
He is simply drawing down. Why? It is when you see the connection between this contractor and the PPP then you get your answer. Multiply this venality thousands and thousands of times over an 18-year period and you are facing the hemorrhage of public money to party people to the tune of billions.
A GuySuCo official told me the pilfering of the corporation’s assets from all the estates over the past 18 years can easily run into hundreds of millions of dollars. Another GuySuCo middle manager explained to me while laughing that I have to be on the estates to see how PPP people working in the sugar industry steal from GuySuCo.
He said it is not theft, but simply “tekking.” He recounted a situation where hundreds of containers of paint were brought into one estate and the next day, half of the amount was missing. After a small investigation, a certain figure was identified as the culprit. But it ended there.
The culprit was also one of Guyana’s untouchables.
To conclude; the point of this essay is to describe how lawless the Government is. The kings and queens and those below them just take what they want; do what they want. They observe no laws. Power in Guyana is totally unbridled.

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