The Private Sector Commission has missed the point badly

Jan 18, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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There are many politically conscious members of the Private Sector Commission (PSC). I know a few of them. These are not people who are politically insensitive and who support crude policies from the corridors of power.
Such businessmen ought to take objection to a press release by the Private Sector Commission on the recent bulldozing by the Government of Guyana of more than three hundred vendors at the Stabroek Market Square.
In the release to the media, the PSC stated its committed support of the Government’s move in ridding the enclave of the disorder that prevailed before the grenade incident. It is unfortunate that the PSC issued such an unlearned statement. It reminds one of the ancient opinion that still prevails today – business people only consider one thing in life and that is profit.
How interesting that last Sunday, the Stabroek News, certainly a pro-business newspaper, in its editorial observed that; “One doesn’t really expect businessmen to have a great sensitivity to heritage… they are generally more concerned with raw profits.”
I don’t think this is a general concept. The editorial should have confined its judgement to Guyanese entrepreneurs, but let us not go in that direction. The PSC’s media statement missed the point badly about the vendors’ removal. No one in Guyana would openly argue in defence of vendors who ply their trade on top of each other’s head, there is no space for shoppers to walk and the place resembles a hell-hole.
Only in Guyana can a Government move in bulldozers and just demolish the livelihood of over three hundred vendors. This is fascism. And the members of the Private Sector Commission should at least attempt a reading of what fascism is. Members of the PSC should tell us in which country a ruling junta can do that and the population remains silent
These are poor people, many of whom are single mothers. What was fascist about the operations (and the PSC hierarchy should have been there to see the demolition exercise themselves; hope they were not at some cocktail event) is that time was not given to many vendors to save their assets. Surely the PSC hierarchy read the newspapers and would have seen barbers desperately trying to save their instruments.
Again I ask; in which country other than in Guyana could that happen without protest from the population? One hopes that the PSC executives saw the graphic images of demonstrations in authoritarian Tunisia.
Governments just don’t operate like the way our regime did at the Stabroek Market Square. That is fascist politics. When they do so, they create instability. When instability is engendered the first victim becomes the investor.
I will always remember the words of the wife of one of Guyana’s most prominent businessmen inside Nigel’s Supermarket during the days when Georgetown was raging with Desmond Hoyte’s invention of “mo fyaah – slo fyaah.” She told me that her husband literally begged Mr. Hoyte to call off Macbeth’s witches, but Hoyte refused, saying that the issue was not just business survival but the survival of the country itself.
One is tempted to compare the PSC press release with the torture policy of the Bush presidency. Was it right to torture terrorist suspects? Where does that leave the rule of law? Was it right for the Guyana Government to arbitrarily bulldoze the properties of over three hundred vendors? Are our business people in the Private Sector Commission condoning the use of lawless power? Nowhere in that press statement was there a disapproving word on how the Government behaved.
Interestingly, next to the PSC’s position was a letter from the CEO of Metro Computer & Office Supplies, Mr. Tage Jadunauth (KN, Jan 7) offering praise to Ministers Lall and Benn on their demolition job. He ended his letter with these words’ Honourable Ministers, do what you must.” It is comical to the point of stupidity that Mr. Jadunauth could single out what in my opinion must be in the CARICOM bloc, the two most controversial Cabinet Ministers.
Indeed, Mr. Jadunauth, Robeson Benn does what he must. Remember last year, he decapitated the robots of GT&T then told the media, he didn’t know who they belonged to. Is that the kind of Minister you admire, Mr. Jadunauth? Is Minister Kellawan Lall given to orderly politics? In which country do you live, Mr. Jadunauth? You did say in your letter that when lawless Guyanese go to North America, they respect the laws there.
Tell me something Mr. Jadunauth; do you think in North America, the citizens would have tolerated Ministers like Lall and Benn?

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