I am urging President Ali to try this experiment

Sep 08, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Perhaps, the person who sees the stagnation of a country fuller and closer is the columnist. He/she will write about a regression or an anachronism and then 10 years later, he/she exclaims; “Those things still exist? I wrote about them 10 years ago?”
Two important pieces of information filtered down to this nation last week about the same time – US Ambassador on Wednesday, 1 complained at a forum she was addressing of the almost impossible investment climate in Guyana. I remind readers Guyana is one of the poorest countries in the world.
Whenever I read those words from an American Ambassador and I have seen such words going back more than 15 years now, I recall the Jack Lemmon comedy, Avanti!, I don’t know why but a particular scene from Avanti! comes into my head always. An American tycoon dies in Italy but to get any kind of document in relation to the death – death certificate, post-mortem report, permit to fly out the body, etc – is almost impossible.
So the American ambassador tries to get a permit to fly out the body to meet a funeral deadline in the US but can’t get the permit and he yelled out, “So much money we put in Italy yet it doesn’t work.” Please see Avanti! It will remind you of Guyana. It is my favourite Neil Simon/Jack Lemmon movie. An outrageous comedy on how Italy does not function.
Mrs. Sarah-Ann Lynch said, “Some U.S. businesses report lengthy timelines for permits, uncertain approval processes, and concerns about procurement procedures even when they follow the submission guidelines to the letter.” In the Kaieteur News of Sunday, September 5, there was another lamentation of poor services and mistreatment of customers by the commercial banks.
Titled, “Archaic and inadequate delivery of financial service,” here is what the writer noted: “The standard of services provided by banks in Guyana, are far below that provided by similar institutions across the globe. We are even way behind those in our own region – the Caribbean, not to mention the entire South America.”
Is there anyone in this country that could look Guyanese in the eyes and deny that the words of the US Ambassador and that statement in the letter were not published in the press 10 or 15 years ago? That is why in the opening lines of this article, I asserted that a columnist would see in more graphic details the growing and expanding stagnation of a country because he/she would have written about those archaic things decades ago that still exist.
This country is entering a new era where the level of foreign money coming in will be far more extensive than in previous decades. Obviously, you cannot have the same kind of bureaucracy handling that level of investment as 20 years ago. The Ambassador talks about “lengthy timelines for permits.” How many times we in Guyana have not heard those identical words going back to the Hoyte era and those words keep ringing in our ears in the 21st century?
What the envoy does not know is while her office receives complaints from investors and her office intercedes with the relevant authorities, the small Guyanese investors have no one to turn to. For these small business folks to get a permit is not a lengthy process but an impossible one.
Things happen in this country that does not make sense in human existence. A gentleman explained to me that he did transport service for a businessman who paid him with a Bank of Nova Scotia cheque. The bank refused to honour the cheque on the position that the holder doesn’t have an account with the bank.
Tell me for God’s sake in which other country that would happen? When you have a chequebook, it is to pay out money from the bank that is keeping your money for you. How can your own bank refuse to pay a recipient from the money the bank is keeping for you?
Here is a little piece of advice to President Ali. It will work and it will open his eyes to the radical overhaul he has to make to this country. Take one of the subordinates in his office, put him/her in a room with a telephone and tell him/her to try for one hour each day to get through to the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA). I am telling the president that young man or young lady will not get through after one month’s try. How do I know that? Because I tried the experiment. I called just before I started this article here. Guyana has to move on. We cannot go on like this. Do something Mr. President. I am willing to help.
(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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