Comical country: Kamboat, Lenno Craig, Digicel, and …

Feb 05, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

This country is a circus. It is unbelievable. Here are some stories about weird Guyana. Leonard Craig who signs his letters to the press as Lenno Craig has just returned from Germany where he is doing his doctorate. We went to lunch last week, then he joined my wife in the car because he was going to a house in Turkeyen, one block from where I live.
My wife asked if he was glad to be home. He said that he was delighted, but when he sees the nonsense that goes on in Guyana, he yearns again for Germany.
What nonsense is Lenno talking about? Lenno had some terrible misfortunes in Guyana. I happened to be right there when some of them occurred.
Here is Craig’s latest dilemma, days after returning home. He lost his SIM card, so he went to Digicel’s head office for the same number. He produced his ID. Both GT&T and Digicel are inflexible about the submission of a national ID or passport when purchasing either a complete phone or a SIM card. Under the law, the names are stored so the security authorities can know who made a call if a criminal offence was committed. That is commonsensical, so no one can argue with that.
Craig said he was informed that Digicel does not deal with national ID in situations of loss of phone or SIM, but wants to have a list of numbers he called six months ago. Craig said a number of other demands were made of him. His request to see a supervisor was refused.
Read the account of his Digicel ordeal in last Saturday’s letter pages of KN.
In 2012, a policeman in the High Court corridor came up to Craig and told him to put his shirt into his trousers waist. Craig and I objected because he was wearing a shirt-jac, only that it differed from the traditional shirt-jacs, in that it was of floral design.
Since that incident, Craig and I from 2012 right through to November 2013, tried as many as twenty times to see the Registrar to ascertain what are his dress code requirements, since he delegated the High Court police to determine what is suitable to wear. He was never there.
This man serves a country with a population of less than nine hundred thousand, yet you simply cannot find this state employee in his office. I have given up trying to see him. I have seen people reduced to tears because a police orderly determined they cannot go into court with the type of colour pattern their clothes have.
Which philosopher made the Registrar and the police orderly group at the High Court authorities on aesthetics? Dennis Atwell of the AFC was turned away in my presence because the orderly told him the colour of his jersey was too loud. I stood in complete numbness, because he was wearing a perfectly acceptable yellow top.
Mrs. Gem Madhoo-Nascimento wrote in a letter in both KN and SN that people are turned away from the National Cultural Centre because they wear denim trousers. In public institutions, women are precluded from entering if they have on sleeveless tops. This country is nothing but a circus with clowns in administrative positions that are downright stupid.
I discovered a weird little thing the past two months on Sheriff Street. There is a small Chinese restaurant there named Kamboat. I found it strange that four times I called to order lunch for my kid, no one answered. On the fourth occasion, I decided I would check it out myself.
Every day, Kamboat ceases operations for twenty minutes for the changeover of staff. Guess how many staff there are – eight. One Guyanese manager, two Chinese cooks, three employees in the takeaway section and two employees in the dining lounge. Yet they have to close for twenty minutes for changeover, during which no one is allowed to answer the phones. This does not happen at any other restaurant in the world?
Finally, I got a call from the Secretary of the CEO of one of Guyana’s most prominent insurance companies. “Mr. Kissoon, my boss would like you to drop off to me a copy of your research on racism.” I don’t know the gentleman; never met him. I later found out the reason he refused to speak to me directly. He doesn’t like dark-skinned nonentities.

Retraction

Acting Chief Justice (CJ), Ian Chang, has sought a retraction of a statement of mine that can be interpreted to mean that President Jagdeo secured the CJ’s duty free car after his request to GRA was turned down.

My statement was contained in my column that appeared in yesterday’s edition of the Kaieteur News.

I do agree that the wording can be interpreted to mean that President Jagdeo intervened with the GRA to allow the CJ to have his duty fee concession. Since I have no such proof, I hereby retract the statement.

I would however insist that I raised the issue in the High Court corridor with the CJ in front of Mr. Christopher Ram. I agree I have no proof that the CJ received his concession through the instrumentality of President Jagdeo. The GRA’s position was that the request should have come from the functional superior of the CJ. Nothing personal was intended in my column.

Frederick Kissoon