The damaged psyche of the Guyanese population

Sep 03, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
The approach to dealing with the electricity situation in Guyana is a reflection of everything that is happening in our country today! It speaks directly to what has happened to the psyche of our population over the decades since we became independent. Political interference and the serious effects of corruption on the dispassionate and objective operation of every sector of Guyanese life, from the Judiciary to the Public Service (including the Police Force) to the Private Sector, have combined to create a culture where decency, self-respect and integrity, are no longer the pillars that this developing society can rely on to move forward because they have all been trampled upon for so long.
Guyana does not lack academically qualified people to occupy positions in government and I certainly do not question the academic achievements of those in today’s Government or those in previous governments, but there is a notable decline in culture that almost all of them seem to be unable to resist or overcome. I speak of those three pillars of society, decency, self-respect and integrity that give power to decision-making.
I started with the electricity situation because I cannot understand why (despite the explanations that there are problems with under water cables) the GPL has to disconnect power on six or more occasions for relatively short periods of time almost on a daily basis. Electricity today is something that has to be delivered in unbroken supply. It is that simple. But it seems that, because of where the psyche of the people responsible for that delivery has found itself, it will never be done.
If it is your job to ensure that current is supplied in a reliable fashion and you can’t do that, then at some point disciplinary action has to be taken, like it should be taken in any other area of labour where there is incompetence or negligence or rule-breaking or whatever it is that prevents the best job from getting done. What could the GPL possibly do to fix a problem in six or more brief outages that it could not do if it took a whole day to rectify (with sufficient notice to its customers) and guarantee an unbroken supply afterwards?
Nobody seems to understand or grasp this approach. I know supplying electricity is a hugely complicated and delicate proposition, and I concede that it takes enormous skill, dedication and hard work to accomplish, but I submit that it can be done with decency, self-respect (and respect for the people being supplied) and integrity, and I also submit that if you look at everything else that is happening in our country today you will find that that same situation persists everywhere.
Don’t you see the Traffic Police harassing the driving population by shamelessly and openly asking for and accepting bribes in the streets? Haven’t you had a situation (or known about one) where the Justice System has failed the average or poor Guyanese citizen because of corruption? Shouldn’t there have been some progress already made in disciplining the perpetrators in the State Assets fiasco? Doesn’t anyone see the suffering of Guyanese workers who spend hours waiting on dangerous and unreliable mini buses to take them home after a full day’s work? Don’t we all know that Public Transportation is the responsibility of the Government? Is anyone talking about that as a priority?
Pessimistic Guyanese

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