One must always believe

Mar 20, 2016 Features / Columnists, My Column

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I have heard people say, repeatedly, “Never say never.” Indeed all things are possible and if anyone needed an example, then that person only had to watch how England chased down 229 in a 20-over game on Friday.
For starters, when South Africa posted more than 80 in the first six overs, many of us cricket pundits concluded that the game had been taken away from England. I am certain that even the staunchest English supporter concluded that the game was all but over.
When it was their turn the England team did even better in the first six overs. In the end that team prevailed and boosted the view that one should never say never.
When the crime wave was at its highest there were many who said that there would be no end to the crime situation. It became a political issue. The opposition made it a campaign issue and spoke of plans to curb it. The government people on the campaign trail tried to nullify the situation by contending that should the opposition get into power then it would send its people to rob and rape the government supporters.
Never say never. The crime dipped so spectacularly that people began to relax. Then something else happened. The police suddenly went into the archives and began to solve crimes that had seemed unsolvable. Before long the police began to arrest people soon after they committed crimes. I remember earlier this year when there was a spate of murders in West Berbice.
There was a particularly gruesome killing that saw two people being hacked to death in their own homes. No one in the neighborhood wanted to believe that the killers actually came from among them. But the police did, and arrested them hours later. And this was after the same group had torched a house and caused the death of a woman.
Again, there was the adage that one should never say never. At least the criminals learnt that they should not believe that they would never be caught.
There was the question of cleaning up Georgetown. Things had reached the stage where people came to the belief that the city would never be clean again as it once was in the early days. Indeed, the government had released $1 billion to clean up the city and the other parts of the country. But for all that money, Georgetown was just as stink.
Suddenly things changed. Today it is a showpiece. People are actually boasting about their city and inviting people to come and see it. Of course, there have been criticisms about the spending but as things go, there will always be criticisms no matter what one does.
The Kitty Market was consigned to the rubble pile. Today it is being rehabilitated, something that people thought was impossible. Of course, I am still wondering why things had to reach such a stage that the authorities had to close sections of the market.
But there is more to this adage. Soon after May, after people had come to believe that there was rampant corruption during the tenure of the previous administration, there were a series of audits. Preliminary reports were that there was a lot wrong. That was how people began to say that many were going to jail.
I did read some of the reports and I also concluded that the prison doors would soon open to welcome new occupants. Months passed and soon people began to conclude that people would never go to jail. But given the old adage I would say that people should have patience. There should be no hurry to charge, because we all know that it is useless to rush when the evidence just would not stand up in a court of law.
But what have the auditors found? For one, they never sought to have someone examine the income tax returns of some of the previous leaders. Many of them became filthy rich, but I am certain that they paid the barest minimum in taxes.
In the United States, the authorities were in pursuit of members of the Mafia. They couldn’t catch them with drugs nor did they get them on smuggled items such as alcohol and guns. But they got them on taxes. Many of them could not show the taxes they paid to justify the assets they had.
The tax collectors, perhaps fearful of Government authority, simply turned a blind eye to many of them. The message was that the tax people were never going to go after these white collar tax dodgers.  Now that there is a change in the administration, I am not prepared to say that they would never be brought to justice.
The decision would be taken to go back seven years. That is when those who say that the big ones are never made to pay for their sins would be proven wrong. I remember the days when one had to get tax clearances before one could leave the country. In those days, regardless of whether one was an ordinary public servant or a Government Minister, one had to pay one’s taxes.
So rather than saying that the tax people would never go after the big ones, simply believe that one should never say never.

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