My love/hate thing with Guyana: A reply to Captain Mazahar Ally

Sep 29, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I love my country but I will not obfuscate my episodic feelings of hate. I hate this country for how low-income and poor people simply do not have a voice to publicise the grievous things done to them.
On the other hand, those with resources have the wherewithal to broadcast to the nation, the harmful things done to them and the society listens and reads but the poor exploited woman, the violated labourer, the oppressed youth, have no voice, no pen.
Marvin Ruhoman has moved on with his life. He will never pen a letter on what happened to him at his workplace – Gitfland Mall. I had to take his employer to the Labour Ministry. He got what was financially due to him.
I rushed to the keyboard to compose this column immediately after reading a letter in this newspaper by captain, Mazahar Ally, CEO of the billionaire company, A. Mazaharally and Sons Ltd. The captain complained of woods being stolen from his forestry concession and he named the Guyana Forestry Commission and the Ministry of Natural Resources as culprits in the conspiracy.
Whenever I read the name Captain, Mazahar Ally at Ogle airport, two things come to my mind. It is because of those two incidents I pen this article. A plane belonging to the captain’s company disappeared. At the time, the captain’s sister, Mrs. Annette Arjoon-Martins was the CEO.
The official conclusion by aviation authorities was that the plane went down in hell, meaning the dense jungle of Guyana. There were two persons on board – the pilot and the baggage handler. It was reported in the press that the handler’s wife went to the company, naturally for compensation due to the dead husband. The company was not inclined to negotiate with the wife.
The sad dimension was carried by the press and I picked up on it in my column. The company contacted my editor at the time, Adam Harris. My contestation was that the grieving wife had a story to tell. That is what the press is there for. Harris objected and I formally brought the matter to the publisher, Mr. Glenn Lall. He ruled that my piece on the wife’s plight was a legitimate issue for journalistic investigation.
A long time after, I met Mrs. Arjoon-Martins in the National Park, being an “impertinent man,” as I always were, I brought up the issue. She politely told me that the wife received what was due to her. Years after the wife told me a contradictory version. Of course, people like the wife go about their lives in obscurity and do not write letters to the press.
The story of the grieving wife and my encounter with Mrs. Arjoon-Martins happened a long time ago. I am wondering if the captain who is now the CEO can tell me what the wife actually received. The second memory of the captain has to do with my nephew.
He worked as the watchman at the captain’s home in Wight’s Lane opposite the Ministry of Public Works. After complaining to me about working conditions, I secured a job for my nephew at GuyOil where he wouldn’t have had to work the graveyard shift. My nephew was unable to secure the monies that were due to him. That incident too was a long time ago. My nephew like countless others, including the wife of the baggage handler, never wrote about their feelings in the press.
The problem poor people have about publicising the wrongs done to them is the libel threat. Media houses are not going to print and air stories that could bring libel writs. A carpenter’s mother says that one of the most powerful business empires in Guyana did not pay her what her dead son was entitled to under the law when he died on the job and a libel writ will follow as night follows day.
I can write about Marvin Ruhoman because both the Chief Labour Officer and the then Minister of Labour, Keith Scott, were the very persons involved in overseeing the investigation in Ruhoman’s complaint. And he won his case. I was a panelist on NCN analysing the one-year anniversary of Dr. Ali’s presidency.
I told the panel that it is nobody’s business how many private jets and yachts a person has. But the state must ensure that the wealth of society is shared. It must be shared. The rich must pay their fair share of taxes. US senator and future presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren, accused billionaire owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos of tax evasion. Bezos went into space the other day. Some columnists wrote that he should have remained there.
(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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