Everybody doing their own thing

Dec 22, 2020 Editorial

Kaieteur News – A quick survey of life in Guyana conveys how costly things are for the taxpaying citizens. As official mistakes pileup, the dollars spiral, and the reckoning will come when it is debt service time.
There is Omai recording a massive gold find, but the nation is at sea as to its benefits. The culprit is secrecy on the contract signed which is the peculiar transparency intensifying here. Just like that Payara report.
From town to Timehri, there is this public back and forth between the Hon. Minister of Public Works, Bishop Juan Edghill, and the Chinese Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) over that airport expansion project to nowhere. Lots of talking, lots of money involved, and lots of time gone together represent a classic of people doing their own thing without a care.
The Chinese were copied by the acting Town Clerk, who had her own ideas about who she should answer to, which apparently disregarded Mayor and Councillors of the City. Obviously, this is city where everybody march to their own drum. They have much company, and it is deafening and detrimental to more than the ear.
Then, a senior police officer had a vehicle full of allegedly smuggled liquor. His story was that he was the point person for family and friends; and later, that the taxes were going to be paid. This was upon interception in Linden, which is a little distant from Lethem. Every benefit is due to this policeman, but it is reasonable that should such a situation be brought to his attention, his reaction would most likely be, that is one cock-and-bull story.
As we examine these situations, what impresses is that open and shut appearing situations are anything but. This is because of the mental agilities displayed over and over again here. We do not think for a moment that we are off the wall with this, for those developments (Omai gold discovery, Acting Town Clerk’s muscle flexing, the Chinese airport abominations, and the case(s) of the smuggled liquor) all point to savvy people responding very fluidly to situations.
By way of elaboration, ‘fluidly’ should be interpreted to mean that those impacted negatively react by providing the startlingly creative, the off the wall. It is one case after another of Guyanese and foreigners doing their own thing in their own time to suit their own caprices.
In the matter of that Omai gold find, it would be surprising if the versatile people in the Government of Guyana do not drum up and come up with something out of this world as a cover story for contract secrecy involving the state on the one hand, and the Omai Company on the other. In this country, as we have learned, give slick people time to put their heads together, and the magical is what results. In this instance, magical is a kind word for sorcery. A clever cover story will be trotted out to rationalize the secrecy involved, which would be the end of that, and rapid moving on following. It would be another example of the dreary cycle of next item, next set of skullduggeries, and the next series of camouflages. Some of which are old, and some others which would be new.
It is a clever way of doing the business of the people. And as a recent opinion column contributor pointed out, corruption has little traction and less sting these days. It is something that we have kept pounding but, however looked at, things have boiled down to this: wha is “li’l teefing”? Try as we might, there is only one conclusion that comes from such a position: this is part of the price for our democracy. It is a fine kettle of fish (Guyanese might knowingly identify piranhas) that the arrival of democracy, and its obligations, has heaped upon this nation. Clearly, our culture brings great difficulty to adapting to the kind of quality changes that are vital for Guyana to be viable as a society, as respected people, and as a place with wealth that could not choke it to death. When almost everyone misuses the freedoms of democracy to do their own thing in their sleazy way, trouble comes.

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