I am against the casino and hotel on Church Street and other things too

Mar 17, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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There is a swirling controversy on the imminent establishment of a casino in the newly constructed hotel on Church Street. It appears that the casino license will be reexamined. This hotel and casino are a repellant indictment of the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabals that almost ruined this country. In ways we will never know, the May 2015 election saved this country.
Mr. Clifton Bacchus the owner of the Church Street establishment, ought to know that in a small town, there are no secrets. People know of his closeness to Presidents Jagdeo and Ramotar.
Georgetown in a tiny place comparatively speaking, and private business is public knowledge. People in this city know about the skeletons well-known citizens have in the cupboards, those who should be morally upright but whose lack of integrity is well known; those who are part of the cocaine business and money laundering; those who got immense property holdings through massive corruption; those policemen who protect big business.
There are people who send out foreign exchange incessantly through illegal channels; those who claim they were independent critics during the PPP’s reign but had conspiratorial arrangements with important PPP leaders; those in the APNU-AFC Government that have their own skeletons.
The list is almost infinite. Last but not least – Georgetowners know who is Chief Mike and what he does and for whom. You cannot lock away secrets in a village.
The secret that is public knowledge is that Mr. Bacchus may have been favoured with his casino license because of his powerful connections. Those powerful connections should not have awarded a permit to build a hotel on Church Street. I am not against the opening up of myriads of casinos in Guyana. I have no theoretical or sociological problem with the functioning of casinos. Clifton Bacchus can have how many casinos he wants.
But why a hotel on Church Street? It is a terribly wrong decision. You are further congesting the inner dimensions of the city when greater Georgetown has commodious space. I think Roy Beepat should be congratulated for choosing Turkeyen and not Kingston or Bourda or Alberttown to locate his sprawling shopping complex.
In the rejection of the casino by other sectors of society, Guyana’s misplaced thinking has been exposed graphically. The Muslim mosque on Church Street got into the condemnatory act quickly.
The religious leadership of that mosque cited the moral degeneration of Guyana in rejecting the casino. One of its chief Imams published a letter in this newspaper, of which a section observed; “Don’t we have enough social troubles in Guyana, with SUICIDES, RAPES, CRIMES, ALCOHOLICS ETC., why then should we have more with gambling when the religious peoples are trying to do their best to bring back to Guyana the STATUS QUO as we know it to be as taught and practiced by our forefathers.”
This may be misleading.  Is there a statistical connection between casino gambling since it started operations here and social degeneration? To argue such you must have at least elementary evidence. But that is not my main point in response to the way religious officials pronounce on social issues in Guyana.
Where are the condemnations of all types of denominations when egregious behaviour and depraved policies envelope this society?
Where was the voice of the various churches when those radio licenses were literally shared out to friends and relatives by President Jagdeo? Was that an inconsequential thing that the churches should have ignored? The airwaves are public property. How could Jagdeo have allowed his friends and relatives to control and dominate them?
The issue is alive at the moment. Will the churches generate the same anger against them as they do with casino gambling? My question is to that mosque official and other officials of other religions; do they feel that the radio licence distribution should be fairer than what it presently is?
Where was the voice of the main religions when Ms. Varshnie Singh accused the President of the country of abusing her?  Where is the voice of the churches on the frightening backlog of cases in our court system that people grow old and die and never had their day in court? Can’t our churchmen muster some courage to call for justice for the poor rather than preaching such a message inside the church walls to their flock?
Where is the voice of the churches when employers can dismiss dozens of trade union members because they went on strike? Shouldn’t that stir the anger of our religious communities?  This is a country where the preachers from all types of religions can be accused of hypocrisy.

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