In his (state of the nation?) broadcast, President Ali passed on the info that the Police had obviously told him – that crime had once again dropped, a whopping 19% this time! Now, right away, your Eyewitness’s BS antenna flickered. If, according to the Police, crime drops every year from the previous year’s levels, wouldn’t it have DISAPPEARED by now?? And Guyanese should all be walking around with halos hovering over their heads?
But the President confirmed what you and he know too well – that crime continues to be a humongous problem, and something’s gotta be done about it! The gist of his remarks implicitly undercut the Police’s statistics: his administration will be installing CCTV cameras ALL OVER THE COUNTRY!! From Point Playa to Crabwood Creek; From Georgetown to Lethem, and the Pakaraimas in between, we’ll have cameras catching the bad guys in the act of committing their dastardly deeds!! And not only will there be cameras, these will all be integrated into one vast network through fiberoptics, and monitored by trained personnel. Wow!!
Now, your Eyewitness knows this can be done. China’s dine it – and it’s their Huawei that set up what we can now see was a pilot project in Georgetown by the PNC. Clearly, this worked so well we’ll now have the National rollout! And again, all of us know that Georgetown in general and certain areas like the Stabroek Market and its environs in particular are hotbeds of crime. So, if the CCTVs have been so effective, imagine what the crime rates would’ve been without them!! The mind boggles!!
Your Eyewitness saw a video of that Agricola 16-year-old snatching the chain from that lady’s neck, and her off-duty Policeman husband shooting him dead. Guess that video was courtesy of one of the CCTVs doing its job??
So, before we start covering the rest of the country with these smart cameras, your Eyewitness recommends that every section of Georgetown be covered. Most of these foreign businessmen coming in to help us develop our country – the oil is incidental!! – don’t go to Kato or Tumatumari. So, we can leave them out for the moment. Once we bring down crime in Georgetown to zero, you bet our reputation will be restored to its pristine glory. And the US will remove that travel advisory they issued to their citizens to avoid our dear capital city!
Now, your Eyewitness bets that some civil rights group or another will start screaming “surveillance state!” and suchlike. They’re the same bunch who feel we shouldn’t be building any jails.
They should walk through those sections of “town” that your Eyewitness and other sensible citizens avoid like the plague!!
…moving up the ladder
Okay, dear readers, by now you’d know your Eyewitness is one of those souls who look at the cup as half full. He figures if he only focuses on the “half empty” side, he’ll only be walking around with that dark rain cloud hanging over his head like Joe Btfsplk – the character in the comic strip Li’l Abner. The fella’s well-meaning, but is “the world’s worst jinx”, bringing disastrous misfortune to everyone around him!
So, rather than count how much money the oil companies are raking in, he looks at our (albeit meagre) share NEGOTIATED by Raphael Trotman and wonders when we’ll start spending it. Not so incidentally, whatever happened to Raphael?? Didn’t he lust to be PNC Leader after Hoyte passed on? Didn’t he make peace with Granger at Nassau? Shouldn’t he be in the horse race?
Anyhow, your Eyewitness is pleased the Trinis, Jamaicans and Bajans are now courting us. Notice that top lawyer being admitted to OUR bar??
Gotta raise that bar!!
…and Congress delegates
With the nominations for the PNC leadership positions in, we gotta watch the delegate selection process that will actually decide who will be the leaders.
It’s like a three-card monte: now you see it; now you don’t!!
