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Monkey banana and the contempt GTT has for this nation

Oct 28, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Yesterday, a friend of mine, Rawle Welch, formerly of the Kaieteur News sports department, called me to assist with an inquiry he was having difficulty in pursuing with the loan agency for UG students.

This is not a UG office but it is situated on the campus. It is a Ministry of Finance service. After his description of his difficulties, I asked Rawle for the landline number for the loan agency. He said he doesn’t know it.

Well, it was simple. Go to the printed 2022 directory of GTT and get it. That is what I did. Then the story of Guyana being a banana republic begins. No country in this world, no citizenry of any country would tolerate and accept what GTT did which I discovered after talking to Rawle.

We will come to what GTT did but a trenchant digression is relevant. If you ask a 14-year-old high school kid what a database is, he/she will easily tell you what it is. So the electoral list has over 600, 000 citizens. Why?

Because when new registered persons enter the database, they join others that are on the existing database. Those existing names will always come up because they are physically fixed on the database. The law says you cannot remove persons from the data base.

A simple explanation should cut it. Each year the medical association has to give the medical council a list of certified doctors. Dr. Maloo Gooloo will be on the yearly submission because he is in the database. Back to GTT.

Since Rawle did not have a number, I went to the 2022 directory. Under the name University of Guyana there are 110 numbers but no specifics. So there is no number for any specific section of UG which is a very large institution. Here is what you have to do. If you want the Faculty of Agriculture, you have to dial 110 numbers before you get through. If you want the loan office, you have to dial 110 numbers hoping you will get through. Now read on.

Do you know 20 years ago I was young? If I entered my seventies, it means 20 years ago I was merely 50. And 20 years ago I criticised the insane incompetence that went into the compilation of the GTT directory. From there on (20 years ago), I have condemned the continuation of this morbid incompetence of GTT.

The point is GTT does not care. They simply parcel out the job to some company that did not use the existing database. And no one in the leadership of GTT has the interest in checking. So year after year the directory is a stinking mess.

So how did I get onto the loan agency? I went to a 2014 directory and got the number. So the obvious question is; how does GTT arrive at the contents of the yearly directory if they do not use the database that they have?

No point trying to get the answer for that question. This is a banana republic and banana republics are shambolic systems of existence. I keep telling people over and over, do not concentrate obsessively on what the government does, there are important dimensions of the Guyanese society that are horrible, irrational and beyond belief.

You have to go to a tiny place near to Bourda Market to apply for a non-visitor British visa. You can get robbed in that vicinity. Banks DIH has placed no-parking signs on a third of a mile of public parapets and refused to grant the Traffic Chief a meeting to discuss the illegality.

A company is demanding that the BV/Triumph NDC sell them 143 acres of land at $230, 000. But the NDC does not know where the buyer is located and who its key executives are. The telephone directory has 110 numbers for the country’s only university and no specific offices are mentioned.

A foreign company sets up a business in a main commercial section of Georgetown and constructed a faulty sewage system that stinks up the road that people have to use and it will stay like that forever. A woman cannot enter a public institution wearing a sleeveless dress.

The government informs senior citizens on what days to collect their pension but there is no location. I could go on and on and on. But I will end with a question.

Do you think in all honesty, the classification of a banana republic applies to Guyana? Do you know of all the varieties of bananas Guyana has, the most delectable one is monkey banana? Is that a coincidence?

(The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not this newspaper.)

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