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A conversation with Allison Parker

Apr 11, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

For years now, I am getting a problem with my telephone bills. I have two landlines yet the bills in the same name at the same address come one week apart. This is inexplicable. Why would GTT bill the same customer on different dates? Like GPL, GTT has a standard date system. It means all customers are billed from a particular date in each month.  Three years ago, I contacted GTT and they explained that using different times to send the two bills does not make sense and I should check with the post office because the fault may lie in that area
I called the central post office. They said that the fault is with GTT. That was the end of the matter for me. There wasn’t a thing I could have done. I don’t know who was telling the truth. Last year, I don’t know what happened but both bills were coming at the same time. Then the sickness started again last week. I found one bill in the mail box last week, then, the other came a few days later. The mystery has returned.
I know this is Guyana where I truly believe that hardly anything makes sense and hardly anything follows logical pathways. You may disagree with me, you may say you don’t see Guyana like this but I lived here all my life and this is how I see my country. In any disagreement with me, the onus is on me to provide the evidence
Such a task is not onerous at all. UG students demonstrated almost each year during the life of the PPP regime from 1992 to 2015. UG students are on the picket line in April 2016 and the placards in the picket line carry the identical words as when I was in the demonstration many, many moons ago. The question? What changes or what moves forward in Guyana? Let’s return to my bill imbroglio.
The thought came over me to call the Guyana Post Office. There is no listing under “G” for the Guyana Post Office Corporation in the telephone directory. There is no listing under “P” for Post Office Corporation.
I called Allison Parker, Public Relations Officer for GTT. She explained that the listing was left out of the printed directory but if I go online to the directory I can find it. I was in no mood to do that because I would have had to start my computer and there is no guarantee I will get on the internet because where I live in Turkeyen, internet service is erratic the past two weeks. During our conversation, Ms. Parker agreed to give me the number but she said it will take time to get me the listing for Sparendaam post office. I chose not to wait. Two questions I asked Ms. Parker which she answered because she said it was public information
One is that it is the same private firm that does the compilation of the directory since GTT’s entry into Guyana. Secondly, she is not aware that there is a tender for the job. Here now is where frustration with Guyana lies. More than one dozen years ago, in my KN columns, I pointed out the omissions of crucial numbers. On one occasion the entire listings for UG were left out. In one of my columns, I suggested a simple methodology, so simple that my pet cat and pet dog will understand it. Do a double entry. Instead of listing the Demerara Harbour Bridge under the Ministry of Works only, repeat it under “D.” When a person goes to “D” and looks up Demerara Harbour Bridge, it would say “see also Ministry of Works”. What is wrong with such a system?
Let’s continue this logic. The directory has a page that is captioned, “frequently called numbers.” Put those very numbers under their specific headings while retaining them under that separate page. Here is an example of what can be easily termed foolishness.  Under “frequently called numbers” in the current directory, there is a placement for “Ogle Air Strip.”  Now simply repeat that number under “O.” There is no listing for Ogle Air Strip under “O.” If you want that number you will not think of going to “frequently called numbers” but go straight to “O”.
In a country with one of the smallest populations in the world with a list of subscribers that may not reach as many as three hundred thousand, the telephone directory is filled with omissions for the past 20 years. Can we ever get anything right in Guyana?

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