There is too much sickening ignorance in the seat of official authority

Feb 18, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There is absolutely nothing any man or woman can do to remove the repugnant edicts that the seat of authority imposes on the Guyanese citizenry. By the seat of authority, I don’t mean the Cabinet and governmental advisors. I am referring to the complete state authority realm which takes in countless entities like the GRA, UG, NIS, Post Office etc.
These stupid edicts can disappear tomorrow by the pen of the relevant state authority. No human in Guyana, only the relevant minister can stop the post office from insisting that you must produce an envelope with your address and the stamp of the post office with a post date in order to send a parcel through that agency.
A simple commonsensical thing to do is to tell the person that in the absence of that document get someone with national acceptance to write a note confirming where you live. Here is a perfect example.
A policeman goes to post a parcel. Since he does not have an envelope, he produces a note from the office of the Commissioner of Police that certifies that John Jones is a sergeant in the force living at 11 Broad Street in Charlestown.
Only one person can get the post office to remove that asininity; the minister with that portfolio. I can offer dozens of examples of sickening ignorance in this country that has no parallel elsewhere and only people with state authority can stop the flow of this social miasma.
Here is an action that to my mind defies commonsense. Please email me to explain it to me because I am dying to know the answer. On Saturday morning, my wife went to her mother’s house in Wortmanville to do the necessary monthly clean up.
I will kill the time in the Botanic Gardens with my dog and she will call when she was ready. The last time I reported on the uncivilized state of the gardens was my column of Tuesday January 22, 2019 in which I stated that there was not even one washroom for the thousands of persons who visit that place each month.
As I left the Burnham mausoleum, I walked towards the little fountain they installed last year. There is a huge sign that informs you that professional photographers are not allowed to take snaps by the fountain or any walkway only private photographing is permitted. Can someone email me at [email protected] to explain the logic behind that order?
Let’s examine this situation. You go with your spouse, lover or child or relative and you take your smart phone and do a few snaps by the fountain or one of the walkways. If you do not have a smart phone (I don’t have or want one), and you see one of the photographers liming around, you cannot ask him to take a photo. So I couldn’t get an image of me and my dog by the fountain.
I racked my brain to think of a rational explanation and could only come up with one. The photographers will damage the structures. Really! I cannot think of anything more asinine. If a man and woman embrace each other by the fountain or hug each other on the walkway, and a photographer snaps away, how could that action, which will last for less than a minute, destroy the structures?
How many clicks will a couple request from the photograph as compared to friends clicking away by the fountain with their smart phones? Normally in the garden there is a small coterie of professional photographers who will ask you if you need a shot or two.
Compare the time such an action will take as against dozens of persons hanging around the fountains and the walkways just taking shot after shot. Some people are even photographed playing with the fountain water.
But there is a formidable argument against the destruction theory. Why would professional photographers in the Botanical Gardens destroy the walkways and the fountain when in those very places they make their living? When I looked at that sign, I saw the deep seated ignorance that governs this country the past thirty years.
Do you know since President Hoyte criticized the banning of sleeveless dresses in public institutions in a media interview, many schools have put up fresh signs with the old edicts? Go to Cyril Potter College and you will see that backward sign fully emblazoned on the gate.
A school in Campbellville has placed a new sign on its gate with those outdated requirements. I guess some people don’t care what the president says.

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There is too much sickening ignorance in the seat of official authority

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