The Guyanese people must wake up before they are suffocated in their sleep

Sep 18, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The ironies of life in this country of thieves are just as compelling as the tragedies. One of the PPP’s biggest critics, Freddie Kissoon, admitted to stealing books while a young man and the PPP has roasted him for it, and rightly so. Yet the PPP is going way beyond Kissoon’s misdemeanour to commit the kind of outright theft of intellectual property of hundreds of thousands of books that blows the mind.
The PPP presents a specious defence to this annexation by claiming it seeks value for money. Beyond the illegal and criminal callousness of this decision, which by its scale, has to be one of the most malevolent usurpations of intellectual property rights in Guyana, there is the other danger in this entire skulduggery. That danger is the mentality, groupthink, epistemology and meme of the PPP as shown by this depraved act.
This decision to steal the intellectual property of others on a prolific scale is confirmation of what the majority of Guyanese have felt for a long time about this cabal that has seized and hijacked the PPP; there is no moral line left they would not cross nor is there a dirty gutter this gang will not crawl into while bringing shame to its supporters who are decent people, and to the country at large.
The Guyanese people always had the distinct impression with the unchecked rise of criminality under the PPP where drug traffickers, money launderers, cocaine barons, gun runners and smugglers operate with impunity and are untouched and unchallenged, that the PPP either deliberately turns a blind eye to crime or is reluctant to counter crime because it gets to bask in the pretentious glory of criminal proceeds such as big buildings and new businesses built with blood money.
We know corruption is now a rampaging animal within the PPP and many PPP hands are in the filth. The basic conclusion the nation has arrived at in the past decade is that the PPP is now a party that sees nothing heinously wrong with illegality, criminality, breaking the laws, illegitimate conduct and reprehensible tactics. That wrongdoing is condonable if it serves some so-called ‘higher purpose’. That the hard work and livelihoods of publishers, writers, illustrators, editors and others can be destroyed and discarded to provide copied textbooks to schoolchildren.
One has to wonder whether this thinking justifies what is happening in Guyana, where the lives of citizens can be destroyed, legitimate businesses wiped out, and inequality can become a monster just so that economic progress can be provided by a drug trafficking, gun smuggling and contraband sub-economy. This is a party that spends $528.2 million every single day in Guyana. This is a government that delivered a budget of $192.8 billion, which was 25.1% higher than the last budget.
The GRA will collect $116.8 billion from taxpayers in 2012, an increase of 12% over last year. Yet the PPP claims it has no money to rightfully pay those who produced the textbooks. Those people have children, too, whom they have to send to school. Why must the people pay these incredible revenues to the PPP yet have their children accept pirated textbooks? Should parents follow the PPP’s example and now steal to pay for books and school supplies on the basis of value for money?
The PPP has no justification for this insane and criminal illegality. We have white elephant projects erupting all over Guyana, yet no money will be taken from the Marriott Hotel to pay the right price for these textbooks. No, this cannot happen. Taxpayers’ money must be bled to go on with these projects to continue the benefits to the elites.
This excuse of value for money has to be one of the most bizarre attempts at self-righteousness by the PPP. Where was the value for money with ‘Fip’ Motilall and the road to Amaila that is not yet built, while ‘Fip’ has left with millions of US dollars? Where is the value for money with those high-priced pharmaceuticals being paid for by taxpayers? If the PPP knew it could not afford the copyrighted textbooks, why not borrow the money? It borrowed US$506 million for a bedevilled Amaila Falls hydro project. It secretly borrowed US millions for the airport expansion and the Marriott. The PPP has no problems paying penalties under various white elephant projects. It is paying through the nose for the Skeldon sugar factory and the Enmore packaging plant which lie idle. But it refuses to pay for copyrighted education materials for the children of this country.
If the PPP knew the textbooks were going to be costly, why in heaven’s name did it not undertake a project to write its own textbooks to save money rather than taking the criminal route by trying to rip-off people who worked hard to make these textbooks? Is this the mindset of the PPP to do the wrong thing rather than the right thing? Why must the law be broken to protect the PPP’s incompetence, slackness, laziness and mismanagement on this matter? Why is it that the stealing for value is convenient and applied to only some decisions but not others?
The PPP fought tooth and nail to give to NCN and GINA to spew swill at will, and to OP ‘fat cats’, but it cannot find funds to buy proper textbooks for the nation’s children. Is this what the PPP wanted the budget cuts restored for – to steal someone else’s intellectual property and provide pirated textbooks rather than pay for the books?
The OP ‘fat cats’ are still getting their salaries, but the children of Guyana must use pirated textbooks. Guyana is at a dangerous fork in the road. Despite the people of this country shouting loudly at the PPP on November 28, 2011, to take a bath to cleanse itself, it remains a stinking den of destructive policies.
It is not the act of intellectual piracy alone here that shames Guyana, it is the mindset and intellectual chicanery that is behind it which poses a bleak future for this country. Some contractors will benefit from this heist and some kickbacks may be paid to a lucky few, but the very shame and insidiousness behind this act will be the future direction of this country under this gang that has hijacked the PPP.
Imagine a government taking about 40% of poor people’s money in all manner of taxes and when the money somehow disappears it then turns around and pirates textbooks to give to the children of those very people who, despite crushing poverty, refuse to break the law and engage in wrongdoing while paying their taxes from their sweat, blood and tears. The Guyanese people must wake up before they are suffocated in their sleep.
M. Maxwell

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