How long are we going to torture these citizens?

Jan 21, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – I note that both SN and KN carried articles on January 19th of the protracted and ongoing battle between Maurice Arjoon, former CEO of the New Building Society (NBS), and his former employer, the NBS. Although Mr. Arjoon is the focus of the stories, I take the liberty of including Mr. Kent Vincent, former Operations Manager of the NBS, who was subject to similar corporate mistreatment, and has his own case hobbling through Guyana’s Court system. As I proceed to share my position, I state for the record that I know both Mr. Arjoon and Mr. Vincent, on more than a passing basis.
It has been years now since this NBS matter involving these two former officers has been dragged through the system. They have been cleared, but they have not been paid, made right, with one interminable delay after another being used to stonewall them, and the speedy conclusion of their individual situations. What is happening is no less than a serious miscarriage of justice, how the Courts should not work, and how the system is being gamed to thwart them. This is not law. It is not justice. It is an abomination and a disgrace to all of us, that what should have been closed a long time ago is still around to haunt Messrs. Arjoon and Vincent. These men have families who have been put through the wringer. They have come out on top in prior holdings of the court, with prior adjudications favouring them. Yet they languish.
Editor, it baffles that these two men, two law-abiding Guyanese, have been dragged through the mud, with what I dare to call politically sourced charges, when they first originated and thereafter. They have been made to lose face with claims of incompetence, and worse still, corporate wrongdoing involving significant sums. They cannot reverse those records; or as I would say put the toothpaste back in the tube. The foul deed is done, and they must live with the odious results. Like so many other things we must live with in Guyana, until some breaking point is breached. And, the way things are going, it would not take much for flashpoints to flare and intensify. The question I put before this country is simple: for how much longer are we going to torture these two men? How much longer will the court system be a part of this injustice?
In the context of the Arjoon and Vincent instances, I can fully appreciate, that memorable remark that Charles Dickens placed in the mouth of Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist. It goes like this: “If the law supposes that, the law is an ass-an idiot…” I think that it is more accurate to say that it is how business mocks the law into asininity. I will not speculate on what the law in Guyana “supposes” but clearly, it has descended into the dismal idiocy, when this matter could be dragged out so long to grind two Guyanese.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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