Desperate times call for desperate measures

Feb 05, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – A hire-car driver was shot three times by a bandit recently. The bandit had reportedly entered the man’s car and asked to be dropped off at a location.
During the journey, the bandit allegedly whipped out a gun and ordered the driver out of the car, no doubt wanting to steal the vehicle. The driver tried to resist twice and was shot in the process.
It may appear to be a dumb act on the part of the driver to resist. But the car was his means of livelihood. Without it, he would have been deprived of the principal means of taking care of his family. What was he to do: simply surrender the car, knowing the financial difficulties, which the loss of that car would have entailed?
Those who pounce on citizens trying to make an honest dollar do not understand the implications of their criminal acts. When your vehicle is your breadwinner and when you lose that, it means that you lose the main means you have to putting food on your family’s table.
You may be indebted to the car dealers, who may sympathize with the fact you were robbed, but who will still demand their payments like clockwork. Sympathy is not going to help you repay your debts. Many drivers are struggling to meet their monthly payments plus to maintain their vehicles. Imagine how difficult life will become if they still have to repay for the car after it is stolen.
A lot of persons who are driving hire cars have not fully paid off for those vehicles. They owe the dealers; they owe the banks and they may even owe friends. Some drivers are not making their payments. And the dealers and the banks are repossessing the vehicles. When their vehicle is taken away, their debts do not go away.
Those who rob innocent people place those persons in a serious dilemma. They place them on the breadline and on the debt lines. Some persons will end up paying debts for years.
It may therefore appear stupid for that driver to have resisted. But you never know the state of mind of a desperate man. It can force you to crack.
But bandits are not the only ones who can force an ordinary person to crack. There was the case once of a poor man who used to play a music set and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) came after him for taxes. This man never had problems with the law and the humiliation of being taken to court was too much for him. He cracked, ran off and jumped into the Mahaica Creek and drowned. How much taxes could this man have owed that the GRA had to go to such lengths to recover same?
Then, there are the daily incidents of policemen. They like to stop vehicles and issue tickets or order drivers down to the station. When an ordinary driver who works with a company has to pay a fine of G$7,500, it represents a huge dent in his income. Some of these drivers live week to week. When they have to pay that amount of money, they have little to take home to put food on the table.
The police can be cruel. They hardly give an errant driver a chance. The poor man does not have friends in high places. He cannot make a phone call and ask for assistance so he has to accept the fines, which are levied on him, at the expense of his take home pay.
This is the type of country in which we live. The hard-hearted criminals do not appreciate just how hard some people have to work for their daily bread and how much distress they are placed in when they are robbed of their possessions.
A little child saved all year to buy a cheapo cellular phone. He prided himself in it, because it took a year of sacrifice. One day, an older boy took it away from him. The child was crestfallen.
The time has come to force those who rob people to work and repay those whom they rob. They should not just be sentenced to jail when caught, charged and convicted. They should be forced, while in prison, to work and have their wages sent to their victims.

(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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