Cash, Communication channels and crime

Aug 19, 2019 Editorial

“Guyanese like fuh walk with cash. They don’t like to walk with plastic or cheques. Some of them are very careless, so they get robbed.” That was the Hon. Minister Khemraj Ramjattan speaking about the high rate of crime in Georgetown.

The minister has a point regarding cash. But that narrative has another side, which interferes severely with any willingness by citizens “to walk with plastic or cheques.” Let a citizen attempt to tender a cheque to a business. The response is unambiguous and final: CASH only. Usually, that is the end of the conversation. The more polite businessperson would share stories of the dishonorable offering cheques, which were accepted, only for them to bounce; they report serious losses sustained. Hence, no cheques. It is a legitimate concern, with the financial pain to match.
Next, Minister Ramjattan said that, because it is a commercial area, there is a lot more wealth circulating in the City. Indeed, there is much wealth around in many places in this society. That wealth, to a large extent, is in cash seeking openings for distributing, exchanging, placing and more. Put differently, some of that wealth has suspicious origins. Thus, citizens with businesses to conduct (and businesses with objectives to conceal) are inseparably attached to cash. It is the perfect cover in this cash-riddled society, which the minister rightly laments. His colleague overseeing Finance is also sure to lament the loss revenues in Vat and other taxes, so easily evaded through cash transactions. Plastic and currency leave a trail.
Let’s be clear: the small people with their small change are not in that big dirty business; but there should be awareness that many small people are almost daily using money transfer institutions to send cash (cleansed kind) to some strange destinations in Latin America. The sources of that cash could lead to some interesting levels in this country. As this country struggles uphill to combat known cash scourges, a sharp citizenry exhibits more versatility at many levels, through fronts and runners, most of them farces. That is why cash reigns.

Next, the opinion of Minister Ramjattan is that crime has been on a steady decline. “It’s the job of the media now, to make sure the public understands that”. On the face of things, the statistics, as shared by the minister, certainly back up that contention. “For the years 2011-2013, he said that the numbers were 3,823; 3,760; and 4,204 respectively. Then from the years 2016-2018, the numbers were 3,330; 3,036; and 2,681 respectively.”There is a problem: the man-in-the-street does not care about numbers; the only ones that matter are the number of blows received, the number of dollars lost, and the number of fears that have to be endured in the most routine activities of life. Statistics do not matter, when a poor man or woman feels under constant attack.
Further, the minister chided the media for sensational crime reporting, which creates the perception that crime isn’t on the decline. Sensationalism and perception do feed each other; the former is a media staple worldwide, and very similar to political rhetoric concerning democracy and accountability: attracts audiences.
Though sensationalism could be toned down, it would be surprising if, in this tiny society, any minister would wish for frequent gun crimes and associated criminal brutalities to go unreported and foster a false sense of security. It might be better for criminal developments to be publicized (consistently, but less dramatically), than for them to gain even more frills (sensationalism) through the rumor mill and minibus express from a talkative society, where everybody was either an eyewitness or knows somebody who was right there. Media sensationalism might be the lesser of two evils.
Minister Ramjattan may be aware that many daily criminal predations around the Stabroek Square go unreported. Unless the injury or loss was significant, resigned citizens move on. Perceptions they are not; statistics matter for naught.

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