Statements from two ministers and a police officer

Mar 07, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Minister of Public Security said that given the spate of robberies committed on persons after they would have made bank withdrawals, this would necessitate sting operations.
This is one of three incredibly unbelievable statements made within the space of three days; the other two came from the Crime Chief and the Minister of Public Infrastructure respectively. Let’s stick with the first one.
We are living in a country where because of Guyana’s nascent oil industry there is a huge amount of foreigners in Guyana. At the cinema to see ‘Black Panther’, the patrons reminded one of the days when Guyana had a substantial number of Portuguese and European citizens. There were quite a handful of White persons in the cinema, no doubt based here because of the emerging petroleum industry.
The American School in Prashad Nagar has been inundated with applications for spaces from the Exxon-based folks who are going to be living here.
This deluge of foreigners will become like the CARICOM nationals who work at the Secretariat. They will not believe some of the primitive things they will see. A sting operation is basic to police functionalism. A sting operation is what a fire is to a match. Once a pattern of a certain type of criminal conspiracy is present in a society, a sting operation is put into effect.
If prostitutes are being murdered, you send an undercover woman to pose as a lady of the night. One of my favourite Al Pacino movies is “Cruising,” where homosexuals were being murdered and Pacino went undercover.
For years, arrivals were being targeted when they leave the airport. For years, customers were attacked when they left the bank with their cash. Our current opposition politicians that were in government for 23 years, never put on a sting operation in those two areas.
The more I think of the crass, morbid incompetence of the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabals, the more I think how unfortunate Guyana is to have such people wanting to be back in power.
So finally, we are going to have sting operations (long overdue) to catch robbers who prey on customers who make bank withdrawals. In a related matter, the Crime Chief made an observation that is not surprising to those who think Guyana is a primitive, backwater land.
One wonders if the Crime Chief himself is surprised at the type of bank bosses we have. He said; “The bank needs to carry out a review of the CCTV within the bank itself. See how many persons frequent the bank; whether they are doing transactions or sitting idly. Follow this daily; see how many persons are being robbed. Check to see if they would’ve dealt with a specific teller, you know. There is so much analysis that can be done in order for us to deal with this situation”.
Not only Republic Bank customers have suffered this fate. An equal amount of Bank of Nova Scotia customers have been victims. But none of the banks in Guyana has ever done what the Crime Chief thinks should be done. The brutal fact is that they are not interested in that kind of investigative work the Crime Chief has suggested. And why? Because it is a service that they will have to fund. Banking culture in this country is characterized by terrible, unmodern modes. Banking service to customers leaves a lot to be desired in Guyana and none of the relevant authorities in this uncaring wasteland named Guyana care to intervene.
Many foreign banks in Guyana would not dare treat customers in their home countries the way they do in Guyana. It is virtually impossible to get a Bank of Nova Scotia official on the telephone, because there are only two lines for its Carmichael Street branch and one for its Robb Street branch. These were in the 2014 telephone directory.
The 2017 directory has no listing for the Carmichael Street branch. These banks will never practice that nonsense in Canada. Trinidad-owned Republic Bank in Guyana keeps resisting unionization. In Trinidad its bank employees are unionized. These foreign-owned banks know that in Guyana, there is a state of permanent lawlessness, so they join in the nihilistic bacchanalia.
Finally, Minister David Patterson said that we have to make do with the cheap, ugly bridge that will be built at Houston. He went on to add that when you borrow foreign money to build a fancy one, you end up in debts you find impossible to repay. I take it that it is an admission that we are poor and thus will never get modern public infrastructure. The Minister is talking nonsense.

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