Can the moral morass of any society run so deep?

Oct 02, 2018 Letters

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Dear Mr. Editor,
At the end of his (valid, I think) critique about our society, Mr. Freddie Kissoon returns to the subject of the prize awarded to his daughter when she was the best 2nd Year student at UG.
He is concerned that no one has commented on the value of the prize- $875.
Can Mr Kissoon not understand what the leader of the Guyanese/Canadian alumnae of the university who instituted the prize said in his letter?
The gist of what was said is that the prize, which started as a reasonable sum, has been affected by the fall in the value of the Guyana dollar.
The money was raised by just 10 individuals. They contributed out of their own pockets, and raised funds by means of activities (for which they also paid for their tickets).
The money was then sent to Guyana, to be lodged in a local bank, with the interest paying for the prizes.
It is still in the local bank, in a number of accounts for the individual prizes.
After the fall in the Guyana dollar, he said that he suggested to UG that the money be combined into one prize.
UG responded that they wanted to keep the multiple prizes. So what should the 10 fundraisers do then? Start raising more funds again? Dig into their pockets and send more money?
Mr. Kissoon, being in Canada does not mean that the individual is rich. They have to pay income tax, property tax, social security payments, health insurance and provide for their families just as anyone else must do.
And while we can wear the same clothes all the year round, they and their families have to have two sets, one for winter and one for summer.
If they had kept their money in a Canadian Bank while sending the interest home each year, the prize, in Guyana dollars, would have gone up as the value of the Guyana dollar fell (more Guyana dollars for each Canadian dollar sent home).
Once the money was converted into Guyana dollars and lodged in a local bank twenty or more years ago, the amount remains the same, or may even fall if bank interest rates are lowered.
As the Guyana dollar fell in value so did the value of the prize, since the amount of money available did not increase.
Mr. Kissoon, when I returned to Guyana to work as a lecturer at UG, my salary was $600.
That was a large salary at the time (1967).
It was more than I would have received if I had entered the civil service.
It was equivalent to the amount my father earned after more than forty years working at Bookers as their analytical scientist (towards the end of his career, he was elevated to a “Senior Executive”. The salary did not increase).
At that time, my shopping bill at Yong Hing’s Supermarket was never more than seventy to eighty dollars per week.
After working for two years, my husband and I could start to buy a house – in what is now being described as that posh upscale neighbourhood, Bel Air Park. The price? $30,000. Yes, that is thirty thousand dollars. Where can anyone now buy a three bedroom house for thirty thousand dollars?
After our parents died, the children sold their house in Wortmanville for $1.25 million, which sounds a lot until it was converted into US and Canadian dollars to be sent to my brothers and sister.
The Guyana dollar was once on par with the Eastern Caribbean dollar.
Today, one Guyana dollar is worth less than two cents EC. I am still unable to wrap my mind around the thousands of dollars quoted calmly by everyone around me.
To me, it sounds like the money in the game, Monopoly; and I have to do a quick conversion to EC dollars before I can decide if an item is worth the price.
Therefore, Mr Kissoon, once these Guyanese Canadians put the sum they raised into a Guyanese bank, the only way the prizes could retain the value that was originally intended would be by (a) the group continuing to fund raise annually in order to increase the original capital sum, so that the Guyana dollar payment could increase as the value of our dollar fell, or (b) combining all the prizes into one annual prize, which would probably require UG’s agreement, if, as I assume, the bank accounts are in the name of the University of Guyana, not the name/s of the alumnae who are not resident here, or (c) by keeping the capital in Canada and sending the interest annually to UG.
Somehow, I do not think that when they had the idea of providing prizes for UG students they ever imagined that the value of the Guyana dollar would have fallen to its current level.
If they had thought of that, I expect they would have kept the money in Canada. I do not see the point of blaming them for something over which they have no control, namely the collapse of the Guyana dollar.
Pat Robinson Commissiong

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