Guyana is falling apart

Dec 19, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
The murder rate in Guyana continues to rise, and even more so among women embroiled in domestic violence whereas of November 2013, seventeen of them have been murdered by their spouses and the Minister of Home Affairs seems to be in a quandary.
For the last two years, the homicide statistics have seen peaks, and the underlying trend continues unabated as the PPP regime and the police high command have been reactive rather than proactive.
The harsh truth about why the crime rate has risen over the years is because there are too many young men who are unemployed, in many instances uneducated, and are therefore unemployable and many have had a long history of criminal violence. And since no one will hire them, then they are bound to commit robberies and in the process will kill anyone one who resists them. Like all of us, these armed bandits need money to survive, but they do not have access to employment.
Piecemeal interventions have been mere band aids that hide a festering sore. Pleas by the citizens for meaningful intervention to end this scourge have so far fallen on deaf ears. We have, therefore, come to the conclusion that no serious intervention to end crime will take place unless the friends and relatives of the PPP cabal are directly affected.
For too long there have been two systems under this regime, one for the rich and one for the poor whose plight is ignored. This is what has influenced the poor planning and lack of a human development strategy in our beloved country. In Guyana, abject poverty is juxtaposed with opulence; a recipe for anarchy and ultimately social upheavals which the powers that be continue to take for granted.
The bottom line is that Guyana needs a major social intervention with an economic underpinning, and the sooner the better. Large scale decay is everywhere, Georgetown is stink with piles of rotten garbage, no jobs for the youths, crime is widespread, and amidst the decay there reigns much decadence and hopelessness.
We are well aware, like so many other well-thinking citizens that resources are not scarce but they are recklessly spent on projects that benefit the rich. We believe that a strategic economic plan if carefully implemented in an equitable and above-board manner can make a difference.
No doubt there will be calls for seminars, conferences, summits and the like. The PPP administration is famous for staging talk shops and providing various platforms for persons to rant and rave, but when the dust settles it is business as usual. Persons are being gunned down in broad daylight in front of many witnesses, yet very rarely are these killers caught and punished because of the system of justice which protects the rich and powerful thus leaving the poor and powerless to fend for themselves. The time for action is now. Guyana is falling apart, it needs help.
Of course, Government alone cannot solve the crime, so it is also the duty of the business community to get involved. At present, very few corporate giants and successful enterprises are making any meaningful and lasting inputs to solve crime. We bemoaned the fact that very little support is coming from the leaders of the Private Sector Commission and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry by way of support. Both organizations have criticized the opposition for voting down the Amaila Falls Project and the Anti-Money Laundering Bills in Parliament but they have remained silent on the crime issue, Mr. Ramotar’s refusal to assent to the Bills passed by Parliament to establish the Procurement Commission and The Integrity Commission, and to set a date for Local Government elections.
We say to those two bodies that the people expect them to be objective and fair to both the PPP and the opposition. However, this is not the case since their unwavering support for the PPP is plain for all to see.
History has proven that when unemployment is low across the country, the crime rate goes down. Need we say more? And this is but one example of what can be done to change the country’s socio-economic landscape and reduce crime. There is too must selfishness among persons in the Private Sector in terms of investment in the communities and helping the poor, but they had better wake up and smell the coffee because the country is definitely falling apart.
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh

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