This is Guyana where you can’t get redress

Sep 05, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
Thanks for carrying my letter, “Harassment, abuse, and intimidation; the Guyana Experience,” about state service in the interior I would be grateful for this final letter here which concludes my description of my experience. Corruption runs rampant. The current economic downturn does not help. Money talks! Civil servants find it extremely difficult to make ends meet. Salaries are meager. Needs and wants are confused with what is broadcasted on the local airwaves. People hunger for the decadent American culture splayed in grainy images across their television screens.
It is this hunger that propels them to wanting the latest, the best and to be seen as being upwardly mobile. It comes with a price. Without an income to support the lifestyle, corruption burgeons and remains endemic in the cultural mindset. It continues to flourish unabated. Corruption thrives upon corruption across all sectors of the society.
Sister Nazmoon, the widow of Brother Tullu, Grandma’s murdered cousin, had granted permission to the original contractor to stockpile material on the property. She is a kind and gentle soul but not wise to the ways of the world. Her husband’s cold blooded death by shooting remains unsolved. Her naïveté has led to the property still being occupied and stockpiled with granite blocks almost two years after she made that innocent decision.
The NDC is the new age equivalent of what was the Local District Council. Earlier this year, in February, I made some enquiries and was told that a certain man was in charge of the sea defence project at Maida. He would therefore know of the circumstances of the stockpiling of the material on the property. That initial meeting and discussion was very amenable. Aside from establishing the usual “ya who papa Pickney” and reacquainting ourselves, he gave assurances that the material would be moved and that the property will be filled, graded and restored to better than it was originally found.
With not much to do except to eke out a subsistence existence, one of the favourite preoccupations of the locals is “minding peoples’ business”. Nothing happens without it being bought lock, stock and barrel by inquisitive men and nosy housewives. News (real or figments of the imagination), are peddled for measly profits …. tidbits of more gossip and rumours. Innocuous minutiae become big news within seconds of occurrence. The rumour in the district is that sometime after the transition to the current Administration, the original contractor for the sea defence remedial work at Maida, lost part of the contract. His material still sits on the affected property. A new contracting firm is currently responsible for the sea defence.
The firm has trespassed upon private property. The company has stockpiled material and equipment on said property without authorization or permission. When asked to remove his material and equipment and pay restitution for his illegal occupancy and use of the property, the firm has accused me of stealing the battery of its earth moving equipment. It filed a false report with the Police at Whim and used the arm of the law to bully, harass and intimidate. Little did he know that first hand accounts exist that point back at it. These accounts support the fact that it had willfully in a spate of malice and spite filed a nefarious and false report with the police.
When the police came for the third time on Friday, armed to the teeth and with firm officials in tow, I was not home. They left a message that I must go down to the Whim Police Station. I did so a couple hours later in the company of a brilliant local news reporter and with evidence in hand. The chief inspector, Mr Simons listened to what I had to say and was presented with the evidence. Partway through, he saw enough. The least I’d hope for is a charge of public mischief against the firm and an apology. I would not hold my breath. After all this is Guyana! Men like these are best left to their own devices, sooner or later, they earn what their hands have wrought.
Jay Mobeen

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