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The day my country failed me in front of my wife and daughter

Nov 08, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I know President Irfaan Ali reads what I write about him. I wrote that he has 10 years to situate himself in the permanent memory of those who live in and out of the land like Cheddi Jagan, Forbes Burnham, Desmond Hoyte and Walter Rodney. Those are four eternal names. Whatever you think of them, Guyanese believe they are four history-makers.
Ten years are a long time to transform Guyana in fundamental ways that would allow people to place the president in the category of those four names above. Dr. Ali has to examine the roads Bharrat Jagdeo did not take. He has to spend endless time and energy devoted to changing this country from a bureaucratic anachronism to a modern Caribbean country.
This is where Jagdeo failed this nation. Despite his power obsessions, Jagdeo had a kaleidoscopic comprehension of Guyana’s economic and financial weaknesses. He had a plausible understanding of our backward bureaucratic system that was even more backward in the private sector.
I shared the Kaieteur Radio studio with many prominent private sector personnel during the five-month election rigging and protocol stopped me from asking them why Guyana’s private sector is so unmodern in the application of technology. Just one example will suffice. I chose this one because it is extremely shocking.
Bounty chicken is produced by one of the richest families in the Caribbean, yet the packets do not carry a readable bar code. The cashier at all supermarkets (not most, but all), takes the packet, lifts it up in front of her eyes to see the number, then types the number into the computerized cash register. I was so disgusted by this time travel back to the 19th century that I stopped buying that brand of chicken.
This column was motivated by a letter I read in last Monday’s newspapers. Titled, “Guyana approximately 20 years behind the rest in technology adaptation,” the description and analysis are a must read for President Ali. This cannot be the Guyana he wants to leave in 2030 when his tenure ends. He must say to himself, that in 2030, he is demitting office leaving a modern country in the Third World where technology has liberated Guyanese.
I will now describe the perfect example to readers of how ancient and hundreds of years behind the rest of the world this country is. Guyana cannot continue like this. It must not be allowed to continue like this. The event took place in August 2018, that is, a mere two years ago. The Bank of Nova Scotia required us to visit with the usual requirements in keeping with anti money-laundering legislation. For proof of address, it wanted an envelope that if it does have the address on the face of the envelope, it must carry a recent post office date stamp.
Envelopes sent from companies normally have a window through which the post office delivery people will see the address on the document. In actual fact the bank would not know if that envelope belongs to me because all they want to see is the stamp date. This meant I could have collected my neighbour’s envelope for that purpose.
Robb Street branch manager, Brian Hackett, came up to serve me. Hackett was a student of mine at UG. He took the envelope put it up into the light and had a problem discerning the date because the ink was faded. My wife asked him if he can actually make out the date.
Right there in front of me the functionalism of my account depended on whether this man can see the post office stamp on a silly, discarded envelope when I had in my possession a document from the police force called “certificate of fitness” for my vehicle which carried my address.
As Hackett twisted his neck and rolled eyes to make out the date, I looked at my young daughter, standing right next to her mother, hoping the experience would not be locked away in her psyche. This was a literal pantomime. A well-known citizen will have his bank account deactivated because in an age of phenomenal technology, the bank manager was relying on one piece of unreliable evidence of proof of address – a post office stamp on a corrugated envelope.
The letter-writer used an interesting set of words, “appropriately 20 years behind.” We are 50 years behind. Just one more example before we close. The borrowing of books from UG library is based on the filling out of pieces of papers as when UG started at Turkeyen in 1972. President Ali has endless mountains and oceans to cross.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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