Guyana looked like Bor in 2013

Jan 07, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Last year, the world’s newest, sovereign state, South Sudan, descended into civil war. One of the key cities that the rebels quickly took over was Bor. In that city, the fighting was more intense than elsewhere.
Each day, (but particular CCTV- the Chinese channel), the television news showed what was happening in Bor. If you saw those pictures of Bor on your screen and the journalist did not mention it was Bor in South Sudan, you would have thought it was Georgetown, Guyana. You could not miss the identical scenes.
Parts of Bor were deserted of course because of the fighting and they looked ramshackled with garbage strewn all over the streets. You had to see these pictures to believe it. Far away in Africa, a country was in the throes of civil war and the sight of the streets was identical to those in Georgetown, Guyana, where there were no protests much less civil war destruction.
On seeing the streets in Bor, I instantly recall that several times, on this page, while commenting on the garbage and miasma on the roadways of Georgetown, I likened the capital city to a country in the throes of civil war.
If ever 2013 could be remembered as a year of shame, it was the overrun of the capital with garbage. It was far worse than in 2012. If what we saw in 2013 is exceeded in 2014 then there is no reason for any human being to want to live in this country. Humans, except in times of war, do not inhabit and should not live in spaces filled with the kind of miasma that took over Guyana last year.
The garbage pathology was so ubiquitous that citizens outside of Regions 3, 4, 5 and 6 where the mountains of garbage are as perennial as the grass, either read about it or were told about it, but they knew this was what Guyana looked like in 2013.
What many citizens did not know were the many creeping immoralities that took hold of Guyana during the past ten years and had become normal life in 2013. These were nasty facts that remained hidden from the eyes of citizens and the pen of the media.
One of these invisibilities is the family domination of Guyana. When the family ownership of Guyana arose in the media and among opposition politicians five years ago, then PPP General-Secretary, Donald Ramotar, told the media that the children of the ruling establishment are citizens who are entitled to be employed in their own country.
That was a valid explanation that is commonsensically grounded, but Mr. Ramotar left out two dimensions of the story. One is, family members of the power establishment always, and I repeat, always, seem to find lucrative employment within the state sector or receive extensive concessions from the State. Somehow, these family members shun work in the private sector.
The second aspect that Mr. Ramotar left out is that the practice in Guyana has no parallel elsewhere on the globe, not even in Angola, where the President’s daughter is one of the richest women in the world. Last year, after this incestuousness was pointed out to me by a former PNC minister while I was sitting next to him at the arrival lounge at the airport about the type of persons who are contract workers within the state sector, I did some investigation.
The people of this country, the media and the opposition parties have not seen the tip of the iceberg. In no other country is this incestuousness so pervasive. It includes immediate family members, extended family members and even distant family connections. Do you know ninety-eight percent of persons working with the State who are in receipt of salaries paid by international agencies are family members and friends of the PPP leadership?
To see this scenario is to see a banana republic in full swing. Only a fool would admit that the PNC Government under Forbes Burnham was worse than what takes place under the PPP. There is no way Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte would have tolerated this family dimension. To properly describe it would appear to be comical, but it is the reality of politics in Guyana.
Here is how it can be put – the PPP leaders are in a hurry to see how far they can milk Guyana, because they know that one day it has to come to an end. So the grab is on for jobs, land, house lots and resources, If there was a competition to give 2013 a label, I would say a winnable entry could be; “2013 – The Year of the Political Family.”

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Guyana looked like Bor in 2013

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