There is a thing called a “blessing in disguise”

Oct 29, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Perhaps no other profession comes into full contact with the rate at which time flies than media commentators. If you are a columnist then the first thing you strike on the keyboard is the date on your piece. Once you press the November button, you are entering the Christmas hallway
Once Christmas comes around, you know another year has gone and there is the inescapable thought of what the new year will bring for you as a person and your country.
This month marks two years since we achieved the historic election results of a two-way sharing of power. The combined opposition won Parliament, the PPP secured the Executive.
The child of one of the most powerful leaders in the PPP said to a relative, “That may not be a bad thing after all.”
For most Guyanese, not only was it not a bad thing after all, but it was a good thing that may have ended our sixty-year old misery and set us on a path not only the Caribbean but the world will recognize Guyana for.
There are four large names in the CARICOM family, three of which the entire world knows about in the following order – Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad.
While the world has known about Jamaica and Barbados a long time now, Trinidad’s First World status has pushed it into eyes of the world the past ten years.
It was Trinidad that spent nearly US$250 to host the last Summit of the Americas where the world’s gaze was on Trinidad because the world wanted to see how Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama would approach each other.
Of that Big Four, Guyana continues to be a very poor country by even Third World standards and to think of it Guyana is potentially richer and larger than the Big Three combined.
The wealth of this country is simply staggering in comparison with the islands of CARICOM. Yet we haven’t moved and are not moving into a securable future.
And the reason for this is our politics. No other example stands out like a sore thumb than the anti-money laundering Bill. If not passed it lacerates the economy in ways that will impact all classes but outside of the opposition no honest stakeholder wants to even approach the government to do the right thing.
From all that I know through my contacts with both APNU and AFC, they are not going to vote for the Bill in its present form.
So unless the government compromises then there will be international sanctions. No citizen wants that but maybe it will be a blessing in disguise.
Maybe as a nation we have to endure social devastation before some of our stakeholders come to their senses.
Maybe a disastrous crisis arising out of the sanctions is what is needed before some stakeholders can recapture and restore their sense of integrity. We do not want a country reeling from instability but maybe it will be a blessing in disguise.
Hasn’t that been our history since the PPP came to power in 1992? Each time the monster tears us apart, there is some attempt at political unity then time passes and it is back to power domination. We saw it when Desmond Hoyte was opposition leader.
The PPP came to the table and dialogue was born. Hoyte died and Corbin began a suspicious journey and it was back to square one.
We went through the Lusignan massacre and the government summoned a national stakeholders’ meeting.
The aftermath of Lusignan died with the passage of time and power madness became more insane. Now we are at the financial precipice with the anti-laundering legislation.
There are times you wonder if the business community in this country would sell its own close, loved one for those Biblical pieces of silver.
Is there another group like these people in the world? You can show them where a policy is so retrograde and indecent and not in the spirit of justice, freedom and democracy and they will still support it. I have no expertise in financial science.
I took time and went through all the details of the Amaila Hydro Power investment and I know in my heart that electricity rates could not have gone down even in twenty years from the pay back terms that I had seen.
I read the anti-money laundering legislation. It puts too much power in the hands of a government I do not trust period! It must be amended to reduce such power.

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There is a thing called a “blessing in disguise”

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