Guyana is a nation that died 50 years ago and is just waiting to be buried

Feb 10, 2018 Letters

Dear Editor,

Last week, I visited a city bank at 1 p.m. – just after lunch. I met a line with just six people but only one staff member was working. I counted 10 teller stations but that one staffer was working even after 20 minutes.
I saw lots of other employees walking about in the bank gaffing and just idling away, but the remaining nine stations were empty until the bank closed at 2 p.m. I took 35 minutes in a line with just six persons. If all the stations were occupied, I would have taken less than five minutes to just make a deposit.
From my observation in all the banks in Guyana, they are all basically the same. Inefficient and incompetent staff fills them just to waste the citizens’ time; their managers and CEOs need to be fired.
After the bank, I hurried to the Commercial Business and Deeds Registry just to uplift a document I filed the week before. I saw a security lady just sitting and there was no order, people just came and forced their way into the line to file and uplift documents. They have no proper numbering system or any decency and order. That place falls under the Ministry of Legal Affairs.
I saw just one lad busy doing most of the work, while the other staffers were just sitting and eating, gaffing, laughing and chewing gum. I even saw one staffer just talking loudly on her phone on speaker while over 40 others and I were waiting for them to go occupy their booths.
I asked the security guard, what was really going on? She told me to sit for one staff to come to booth 2. I sat waiting. One staffer came and spoke with a girl twenty minutes and left the booth, never to return. I was still waiting, when I saw the person who handled my documents the week before. I called her and she took my slip and gave me my document in two minutes. A simple procedure that supposed to take just two minutes cost me 65 minutes of waiting.
In my personal opinion, more than half the staff at the Business and Commercial Deeds Registry should be fired. It’s a waste of space – people obtaining the government’s money by false pretence or just being square pegs in round holes.
I then proceeded to the GTM office after that boring and despicable experience. I was the only person there just to pay a premium. The staff there just looked at me with disdain and said nothing, until I called and made some noise. A young female staffer came and dealt with my payment. I took another 35 minutes there.
When I observe all the incompetence at most offices in this country, I am flabbergasted at these people who are working in these institutions and establishments. Real leadership is about putting others before ourselves, but it seemed to me that people just show up to work just to collect a salary at the end of the month that they never worked for. If this government is employing staff to work, then they must work for their money and don’t idle.
In most offices I have visited, I have seen long, stagnant lines until you are told to come back another day. I waited nearly two hours not long ago at GRA then was told to come back another day because their printer ran out of ink. What nonsense! They are supposed to have replacement cartridges of ink in abundance. But again, I must repeat myself, the not so educated have risen to power, no wonder we have so much migration, unemployment, crime, suicides and moral degradation all over this nation.
Guyana needs young, competent and efficient people to lead this nation or we will be a nation left a million miles behind our CARICOM neighbours. In Trinidad, you can get your Birth Certificate the same day in minutes; here you have to wait months and years. In Suriname, I get my ID card in 5 minutes; here it is months and years. Where are we heading as a nation?
If we can’t evaluate simple staff performance at our offices then how are we going to manage this whole nation? What I see here is a lack of vision and proper administration to govern this nation. Guyana is a nation that died 50 years ago and is just waiting to be buried.

Yours truly,
Rev. Gideon Cecil

1 thoughts on “Guyana is a nation that died 50 years ago and is just waiting to be buried”

Kassem_B February 10, 2018 at 12:32 pm

‘Guyana is a nation that died 50 years ago and is just waiting to be buried’
It’s a long wake
Are you going to take the death certificate to the Registry for filing?