Evil, silence and floods 2013; evil and floods 2014

Nov 22, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

When Parliament failed to approve the amendments to the anti-money laundering Bill, I wrote on this page that I would welcome the international sanctions that Guyana will have to endure and the consequent national disruption to the economy.
I stand by that position, unapologetically. The financial upheaval will hurt all of us, some in thin ways, and others in extensive ways. The ones who will suffer the most are those with their super profits and are the biggest supporters of the PPP Government. I want them to be hurt.
I don’t have any objection to the wealthy strata earning their billions. It is the manner in which they treat freedom, justice and democracy. A minority government refuses to compromise in a Parliament and the wealthy classes that support it refuse to lean on it to make concessions. Why then should people like me bother with the hardship these people will face if sanctions hit Guyana.
I have the same attitude to crazy drivers and minibus passengers. I saw an accident on Vlissengen Road in which two drag racers hit two carpenters off their bicycles and buried them in the trench. They died before they hit the trench. I was right there when it happened. I took a huge swipe in my column at the Magistrate who freed them.
If crazy drivers want to drag race on crowded streets, our hope is that they kill themselves and not poor souls going about their business. What right do we have to care about minibus passengers who are laughing and enjoying loud music in a vehicle going over a hundred and sixty kilometers an hour?
I adopt the same conceptual approach to the business community with regard to flood. I penned columns since the Great Flood of 2005 on the disaster waiting to happen again with clogged alleyways, drains and trenches that have become jungles. Here are quotes from two such columns. On November 15, 2013 under the caption, “25 minutes of evil,” I wrote; “The downpour lasted for 25 minutes. For sure it was not beyond half an hour. As we drove back home from Carmichael Street, most of the roadways we passed were flooded. Citizens whose yards were flooded, included my nephew’s. You cannot read about it. Even if you watch it on video it would not be potent in your eyes. You had to be around in those 25 minutes to see the failure of Guyana.
“What is so frightening in this country is that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that if 25 minutes of rain can bring such swollen streets, what would four hours of a downpour do? If you saw College Road between Brickdam and Hadfield Street in Wortmanville on Monday where the technical head office of GT&T is located then you know that GT&T cannot avoid total wreck of its lower buildings if we have eight hours of a thunderstorm.
“We are talking about a national disaster if we have those four hours. We are talking about the devastation of Georgetown if those four hours go into eight hours. We are talking about the erasure of Georgetown if those eight hours repeat themselves the next day.
“In celebrating 21 years of office for the PPP in Lusignan, Bharrat Jagdeo told his listeners that Guyana is a good country and that they must not be disillusioned by a few clogged drains (see my response to Jagdeo’s horrific statement, “No one in Lusignan and Guyana can be that silly,” KN, Wed., Oct 19, 2013)”.
On November 28, 2023 in a piece titled, “Predicting the continuation of evil,” I stated, “Well yesterday my prediction came through. We had much more than 25 minutes of rain. We didn’t have four hours; we had just about 95 minutes, and what I predicted about GT&T came true. It was the entire Georgetown that was flooded. It was not confined to downtown Georgetown. It was all over – it took in Kitty, Campbellville. Wortmanville, Lodge, Prashad Nagar etc.
One day I looked at the gutter that runs along Garnett Street in Newtown where that road meets Middleton Street and so thick was the mud that I said that if the rains came it is going to flood that area. Well, yesterday, it happened. I saw it. We are creeping towards a major national disaster. We are seeing it but the entire population of this country stays silent and refuses to act. Yesterday the rains lasted about ninety five minutes and Georgetown was inundated. Why would there be any Guyanese out there who thinks it cannot last for four hours?”
The business community has finally found its voice. It discovered the people responsible for the tragedy this country is in. After the profits got hit, the businessmen and women saw the connection between evil and floods.

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