The season of goodwill is over

Jan 26, 2014 Features / Columnists, My Column

By Adam Harris

The season of goodwill has come and gone; once more it is back to business as usual. For one, this is the time of the budget preparation and in a few weeks there would be the arguments about spending and unsubstantiated allocations.
Once more the parliamentary opposition may be in a position where they may wish to negate certain allocations and the old cry of hampering development would go up again.
Guyana experienced positive growth last year but as was expected, the government claimed that had there not been budgetary cuts in certain areas the growth would have been even greater.
For me, the issue was a mere detailing how the money is being spent and this happened because of all the allegations of corruption.
I do not for one moment doubt that as senior government officials there was money on loan from the commercial banks that were bursting at the seams.
However, the extent of the constructions and the size of the financial holdings caused many to doubt very much that these were acquired from the earnings.
But even as these things are going to be happening on the national scale there are some things that ordinary people experienced and enjoyed.
During those moments they forgot the troubles of the day although they were constantly reminded when they accessed the various news media. I remember the former President Bharrat Jagdeo kept accusing Kaieteur News of promoting the violence in Guyana by reporting on every sordid event.
Today, there are the electronic media houses that are as instantaneous as anything. They beat the radio for instantaneity and they are even more detailed. In addition, they reach every corner of the globe.
For example, people have called from distant places to ask about an incident that I had not even heard about.
And while there were these reports of sordid incidents the number of people visiting Guyana actually grew.
I did ask some of them about their fears about coming to Guyana and they said that they had none; that it is as violent as any other place on earth.
They directed me to the shootings in the schools, malls and cinemas in the United States, to the executions in Trinidad, which still attracts hordes for Carnival, and to the various horrors in other countries.
At one time I did say that people in other countries felt safer because of the police response. Within a few minutes you can rest assured that an armed response would be at the crime scene. Guyana is still to catch up.
But there were nice things too and I was actually at the centre of one of them. My mother turned ninety and with my siblings, we decided that she would be queen for a day.
We rented a large hall and the rest; we allowed her to prepare her guest list and organize the programme.
She had the final say in the seating, we decided on the music and the menu.
Photography is an interesting thing; it captures and holds moments. The slideshow that featured various times in my mother’s life helped us to see her age before our very eyes.
And when it was her time to talk, she remembered from whence she came. Of course we all did.
The good side of this is that at ninety she never had to bury any of her children. In fact, all her siblings are also alive, so I am sure that I have a lot of living to look forward to. This occasion also made me see the harsh side of living in the United States. I experienced what was said to be the coldest day in 100 years in that country.
Then there was the snow storm. That storm was no excuse for absence from work, so I saw cars sliding all over the place. I also saw people hugging the indoors and grumbling about their relatives who sit back in Guyana and expect the moon and the stars.
In Guyana, if there is the slightest bit of rain we saunter into our offices late, safe in the knowledge that our employers would nod an understanding head.
For me, I could not head home fast enough. My sister was worse. Even in the house she insisted on wrapping up. She is back home and singing the praises of Guyana to the high heavens.
And there is another thing that was brought home to me in stark reality. There are people who must absent themselves from work at least twice a month.
The other day I asked myself, how could that be? In the United States, people know that if they slip there is someone waiting to take that job. In Guyana we all say that there are no jobs, so how is it that people can play with the jobs they have?
Glenn Lall has no hesitation in asking people to separate themselves from their job. I wonder if his no-nonsense style would spread in Guyana.

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