One Rotten Herring Spoils the Entire Basket

Apr 29, 2024 Letters

Dear Editor,

I beg for a space within your newspaper to venge my frustration on the indecent conduct of forestry monitoring officers patrolling the Itaballi – Winiperu range, Essequibo River.

These novices learnt from their seniors that pressuring and squeezing stakeholders especially within the Interior locations allows someone to move ahead in this work. What these individuals failed to understand, is that to access information or help from stakeholders, in cases of some investigation, a professional level of courtesy and kindness is required. But these guys are the epitome of all rudeness and disorderly behaviour.

The supervising officer, stationed at Winiperu is the head of the harassment unit. He and his minion’s methods involving shouting down stakeholder’s throats, threatening to seize their produce if they don’t pass a money, selling of alcohol & illegal substances to log camp workers and play police with other customers.

This officer’s conversations are filled with lots of expletives when on patrol and around any camp sites, boasting about the power of his ‘green’ uniform and linkages with a very influential senior officer if he is in a tight spot.

Moreover, there was a particular officer, whom not too long was transferred from Winiperu, challenged me in the interior and his exact words were “If I don’t give him whatever he wants, he will put something cold on my head”.

It seems to me that to exert that amount of power, this youngster is in cahoots with a very senior official who is using him and other employees of this nature as personal toys to ride roughshod over stakeholders to ensure they are following his ‘rules’. I’m calling on the Honourable Minister of Natural Resources to look into this dilemma as this is a serious matter of concern.

Yours sincerely,

Thaddeus Williams

Forestry Stakeholder

frustration, Itaballi, Monitoring, patrolling, Thaddeus Williams

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