Two money-changers and our education system

Jul 07, 2019 The Story within the Story

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By Leonard Gildarie

On Friday evening, in the newsroom, I met Pandit Ubraj Narine for the first time. He had come for an interview on the radio.
As the new mayor of the city, he cuts an unusual figure in City Hall which has over the years seen almost permanent fixtures in the likes of Hamilton Green, Compton Young and Ranwell Jordan.
I saw a video of Narine, a young Indo-Guyanese last week on Facebook criticizing a South Road hotel for dumping garbage across the road in an empty lot. It was unusual and refreshing.
I smiled. Narine is not afraid to criticize. He has been regularly clashing with the old school at City Hall, which over the years strangled Georgetown and the environs because of poor management and corruption. It was an inflexible cabal. You wanted a plan passed, you pay.
There were reports of a senior employee who only came to work to handle the application of someone who is paying.
Yes, corruption. A previous Town Clerk had been highly critical of me for daring to question City Hall and about reports of wrongdoing. He had some long words to describe my unfounded writings, as it was described.
Unfortunately, he has been sent home, by his own people who were shocked at some of the findings. I always felt he was one of the better ones. I was sorely disappointed.
As we conversed with Mayor Narine, the Publisher, Glenn Lall, made it clear that the situation of Georgetown can be solved in a jiffy if we are able to get it right with our oil deals.
I will not repeat our missteps in the ExxonMobil negotiations. We dropped the ball.
There was the perfect opportunity. We still have the ball in the court. The oil belongs to us and I am convinced at this juncture that ExxonMobil, knowing how to play the tough game, can still do the right thing and sit at the table. The demand for a better deal will dog this administration and the next, and leave a shadow on the legacy of ExxonMobil, a US company that banks on Guyana to double its profits by 2025.
If we can get five percent instead of that measly two percent, Guyana can smile.
But that is for another story. We have to continue to appeal to ExxonMobil.
Last Thursday, we were sitting in a meeting when the call came that a moneychanger and his daughter were shot dead at his Better Hope home in an attack.
The bandits knew his routine. They ambushed him at his home, shooting him several times. His daughter, 18, a first-year medical student at the university, was shot once in the neck.
I saw photos of an anguished teenaged sister and mom. Their lives have forever been changed.
Two senseless killings. These were not church boys. They are killers who deserve what will come.
Aaron Latchman was a well-known sight at Stabroek Market, around the “KFC” area, dealing there for years. He always carried cash with him. It is part of his trade.
Several weeks ago, Prince Alleyne, another moneychanger was ambushed in an early morning attack as he exited his car at Ashmin’s on High Street. The bandits knew his routine. His family is still crying for justice.
Are the matters related? I don’t know.
What is known is that we remain a cash society. What is known is that there is in every community young people who do nothing. They have no jobs and are smoking, and preying on unsuspecting persons going home from work or building their new homes has become routine.
Recently, we received news that a gang that targeted unfinished homes on the East Bank has been busted.
The point is that we have to be careful. Criminals are seizing opportunities and they are in no mood to negotiate. They don’t care whether there are security cameras.
To cold-bloodedly shoot a woman speaks volumes.
There is deep anger over this incident because Latchman represented the Guyana dream…hard work every day. The Stabroek area is no joke. They were watching and gauging him.
In the midst of this, there is one thing very clear, we need to ease on the amount of cash we carry around.
It is a fact that new anti-money laundering laws have placed intense pressure on banks, insurance companies, gold miners and cambios, and others high-risk entities.
However, there is a whole different world out there which is escaping the net cast by authorities.
The possession of and transport of huge cash sums will surely continue to attract the attention of criminals who will not hesitate to kill.
We simply have to move to reduce our cash transactions.
This past week also the Grade Six students who wrote the exams received their results. I am proud of the ones that did well. The parents should be too. It is the beginning of a journey. But there is another side to the story. One that has me concerned. What about the kids who have not done well?
I brought the oil issue up, as education will have to figure in our long-term planning when we are spending the proceeds.
We have to examine, as policy makers, the areas which have to be targeted and create the necessary curriculum and programmes that would have a ready workforce.
In the same breath, there is a big problem happening at our schools.
Many children simply do not have enough to eat. They go to school, walking long distances, paddling sometimes for hours in hinterland communities.
I hate talking about it, but countless times we are forced to adopt a few students to buy lunch because of the dire situation. These students who are suffering come mainly from single parent homes.
There is one case where a single mom would leave home for work, and was made aware that her children had not been attending school for weeks.
The alarm bells should be ringing. I thought the Ministry of Education had social workers. I thought that the marking of registers for students would highlight some red lines. How did this happen? Are teachers paying attention to whether a number of students have learning disabilities? What are we doing about it?
We are spending hundreds of millions annually in school feeding programmes. Are we getting value for money or are there scams being carried out here as well?
I understand that a breakfast programme will see Milo and cereal and other types of nutritious breakfast for Berbice students. Who is checking to ensure that the students are benefitting?
I raise these questions as the onus is on us for a better Guyana. We can sit on the sidelines or we can collectively raise our voices.

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