Are we over-reacting about this Bill?

Nov 03, 2013 Features / Columnists, My Column

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The situation today takes me back to New Year’s Day 2000 when people around the world expected the worse because computers were supposed to have behaved in a certain way because of the millennium change. Computers were said to have been programmed to read the last two digits in the year, the same way that they do today, so the pundits began to wonder what would happen when the computers were asked to read the ‘00’ which represented the year 2000.
Many said that the computers were already programmed to accept the change. Even the little handheld gadgets that we had we were told to expect problems. Indeed, the cell phone had come and they were providing the time and the like.
Midnight comes early for places like New Zealand and parts of the Pacific so for a few moments the attention of the world was focused on those countries. Nothing happened. Airport systems did not collapse nor did any of the computerized gadgets that had become so integral to human existence.
Those of us in Guyana who had a few hours, as many as ten hours to see what would happen, began to breathe a sigh of relief. But of course there are those of us who simply look for a Doomsday scenario. It is traditional that we call everyone under the sun on the stroke of midnight so we all pulled out our cell phones just to show off that we had these gadgets.
Lo and behold, the system at Telephone House just could not handle the calls and crashed. Rather, the system became choked. People who had learnt a few words of the international language began to talk about the Millennium Bug hitting Telephone House.
This time around we have what has become known as the anti-money laundering Bill. The government did have a positive campaign for this Bill and pretty soon just about every Guyanese knew what the issue was about.
There was talk about sanctions against Guyana, particularly the business community and those importers who must transfer money in order to get goods into the country. Of course, the campaign did not leave out the common man. The experts began to talk about remittances being affected. So there it was that people who normally expect a ‘raise’ from relatives overseas at this time of the year were being told that unless there was this Bill they would not be able to get one cent.
There was more to the campaign because suddenly, many organisations began to place advertisements in the newspapers begging the opposition to pass the necessary legislation that would allow Guyana to avoid being blacklisted by the international community.
Of course, there were those who already proclaimed that they were feeling the effects of what they say were sanctions. For example, one girl spoke of a relative getting a hard time sending money to Guyana for his mother.
Another person spoke with all authority that insurance companies in Guyana that needed to reinsure with foreign partners would not be able to maintain that relationship.  I know that one importer said that he had brought in some items but that the seller was having a problem negotiating to get his money out of Guyana.
But I recalled someone writing about the days when Guyana really had its back to the wall. Guyanese ingenuity prevailed. There was no money but goods came in. People who had to move money found interesting ways. I know that in those days the United States Port Authority was not as rigid as today so people entered the country with tons of foreign currency picked up in Guyana at blackmarket prices. In fact, people got very rich.
This time around there is a lot of money to move around, but there is also Homeland Security and the ever vigilant officials who suspect that any movement of cash is intended to fund terrorist activities. But then again, the authorities should not have to worry. Guyana is not too dependent on trade with Great Britain and the United States and Canada.
These days there are China and India and those other countries that would take money without asking too many questions. My take on this is that the Guyanese business community wants to enjoy travelling to the western world for their vacation, so they would not want anything to disturb that.
But there was no need for all this confusion. Last week I suggested that the government could have granted one concession to one of the parliamentary opposition parties. On Wednesday I heard that the government is now prepared to make the Public Procurement Commission a reality.
I asked the Cabinet Secretary whether this had anything to do with the demand by the Alliance For Change in order to get the vote. The man said that my conclusion was a distinct possibility. Well I must ask why now when, according to the government, Guyana is staring down the barrel of a gun.

 

 

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