The GRA and thief from thief mek Gaad laff

Nov 04, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

This must be the only stable country on Planet Earth that does not have a functioning human rights organization and a consumer affairs entity. This must be the only country on Planet Earth where one cannot pick up the newspaper and read the comments on societal happening by a university lecturer. Substantial numbers in Guyana think they have a better country than many in Africa, Central America and elsewhere.
You pick up any newspaper from any African or Central American nation, and you will see opinion pieces by university academics. If tomorrow, President Granger appoints Bharrat Jagdeo as Prime Minister and the country rejects it, for an informed analysis of the implications and consequences, the Kaieteur News and Stabroek News will have to contact UWI professors. This morbid vacuum is deeply troubling.
It is psychologically shattering in that the country has been an enduring autocracy because of its colonial origins and that culture has dominated the life of Guyana since. In such a Hobbesian situation, the society needs voices of courage and reason. But there is none. We have a constitutional body on paper titled the Human Rights Commission. We may never see that body come to fruition. This country at a profound psychic level has no knowledge of what constitutes deep, philosophical values that underpin and hold together the meaning of civilization.
Make no mistake; Royston King was logical and inevitable. King may go tomorrow and will be confused as to why he was fired (who is so thinking in the Coalition to know that King is irrelevant; irrelevant to what?) because he accepts that what he is doing is normal. And King is right. The ingrained culture of this country is an authoritarian one. Any political theorist asked to name an enduring autocracy would cite Russia but that is because Guyana is too obscure on the global scene so they do not know about this land.
If you want to see how implanted in the soul of the nation is this permanent autocracy, talk to any member of the AFC, PNC, WPA that was in the opposition for the past 23 years when they were textbook students of human rights. Today, in power, every one of them will justify undemocratic state behavior as is one of the WPA’s long-standing leaders, Tacuma Ogunseye, in the Joe Harmon/ China trip scandal.
He wrote a letter in the newspapers saying the media is behind the hunting down of Harmon; the very media that is responsible for Harmon and Ogunseye being in government today. That is how permanent is the dictatorial instinct in this country.
Sorry for such a long introduction to my main point. Four GRA employees have been dismissed. You do not want to know for what. And I will not describe what the offence was. What I am going to do is contexualize. In the context of the forensic audits and what those investigations found, these four little defaulters could be compared to a reckless driver who ran off the road into a trench with a box of live chickens that drowned with a careless bus driver who ran off a mountain killing all 50 passengers.
I remember warning readers that it will come to this; and it has. We will come to the situation whereby little public servants will go before the courts for tiny illegalities while former big wigs when in office stole billions, bought mansions and opened foreign bank accounts and they will have the freedom to enjoy la dolce vita for the rest of their lives. Our hard-working police were extraordinarily diligent in following the pattern of the forensic auditors.
They discovered a clerk who allegedly stole $28 million from B. K. International. Some Kaieteur News journalists will tell you, I said to them when we talked about the case, “thief from thief mek Gaad laff.” Of course, I wasn’t saying people at the BK Company steal. Can’t blame the police for doing their work however selective as the guys as SOCU do.
The circus is back in town. Most Guyanese are experiencing a biting irony. They are annoyed at how much money was spent on the forensic audits but they are laughing because the audits have morphed into a colossal circus with funny clowns. I end with a few words from one of my favourite songs, “Send in the Clowns,” from the Broadway musical, “A Little Night Music.”
Don’t you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you’d want what I want
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don’t bother, they’re here.

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The GRA and thief from thief mek Gaad laff

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