Is Guyana morbidly jinxed?

Dec 21, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I entered the Arapaima Restaurant on Main Street to grab a quick bite. Entering at the same time was attorney, Roysdale Forde. He said to me, “Freddie this country is jinxed; look what happened to Murray.”
Forde went on to make the point that Murray’s presidential candidacy would have revolutionised Guyana’s old political culture.
I thought so too. I also mentioned that for a long time now I have known that Guyana was a blighted, wretched land.
South Africa has gone beyond imagination. Nelson Mandela was freed and became its President; there is an African American family in the White House; there is power-sharing in Northern Island; the Tamil rebellion in Sri Lanka is over; pessimistic Russians are no longer maudlin; their country is awash with money.
The PMN has lost power again in Trinidad. But troubled Guyana remains mired in tragedy. It has to be a permanent tragedy when one heard what Roger Luncheon said about the PPP and its relation to the Government.
This was a shameless admission of party paramountcy, a carcinoma under the PNC that we shed our blood to extirpate from the social structure of Guyana. Indeed this country is jinxed.
Does anything work here? When you criticize the Government of Guyana, all of its practitioners get angry, denounce the private media and accuse us of ridiculing our country. They barefacedly confuse the nation with the government.
When we condemn them, we are referring to the incompetency of power. The graphic fact is that the people who wield governmental authority at the ministerial level cannot successfully organize a boys’ scout jamboree.
These people cannot get the traffic lights to function. The portfolio for that process lies with Mr. Robeson Benn. It is a public fact how Mr. Benn feels about me. Twice he threatened libel. Then there was the national disgrace of the weeds in front of my home.
Does Benn do his ministerial duties?
Well it depends which perspective you use. I know the businessmen in Wakenaam are planning to confront him. He has ordered the removal of the two-way ticketing system for the ferry going to Wakenaam, a system that is older than Benn himself.
Mr. Benn enunciated the change last week. But a week before that, some of the major traffic signals have broken down. Have I been unfair to Benn? The answer is no.
Benn found time last week to check into the ticket system at the Wakenaam ferry route but seems oblivious to the madness that has overtaken some streets in the heart of the city. And look when the collapse occurred. At the Christmas season.
This non-function of some of the major lights has been going on for more than two weeks now.
They include Regent and Cummings Street; North Road and Vlissengen Road; North Road and Camp Street. Don’t watch at what happens at the last junction.
It is a nightmare in the morning and afternoon rush hours. Surely, commonsense would dictate that at the Christmas season, you would want to avoid an “Italian Job” situation in downtown Georgetown.
Those lights should have been checked and constantly monitored as we approach the end of the year shopping spree.
Daily at these corners, I see the breakdown of a society. Cars run into cars. Minibuses run into minibuses.
Cars run into minibuses. Minibuses run into cars. Trucks run into cars. Minibuses run into trucks. This is Guyana in 2010. Why can’t we get simple traffic lights working?
You could have endured their haphazard operation if it was during the year. Can’t someone tell the governors of Guyana that this is the busy shopping period when the roads are literally covered with metal?
So is this writer being unpatriotic? Or is my anger properly directed to those who cannot run a small family-owned salt goods shop much less a country in the 21st century. Has it occurred to the people of Guyana that we are so technologically backward that we cannot maintain working traffic signals?
What is so complex about getting traffic signals to function? Can there be an official explanation from either President Jagdeo or Mr. Benn once and for all about the situation of the traffic lights?
It is money to maintain them. Is it that the atmosphere in Guyana prevents them from working? Is it the type of electricity that flows through the wires? Is it the type of soil that the posts rest on? Smaller countries with less population have permanently functioning signals.
My relatives in Barbados tell me there are no problems over there with their system. Well, you know the answer why they have broken down in Guyana. The country is jinxed.

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Is Guyana morbidly jinxed?

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