…on the streets
The minibus operators have been ordered to remove the psychedelic “wraps” they’ve used to cover their buses in clear violation of the colour-schemes that were laid down decades ago. Each region’s buses were allocated a specific combination of colours along with a 2-digit numbering system that were to facilitate their identification. For instance, buses from one region needed Police permission to ply another region’s routes, but with this explosion of colours — like Phagwah all year round — it’s impossible to figure what’s what!
So, dear reader, you may ask what’s the fuss, since the law’s so clear and it’s being flagrantly (not to mention “colourfully”!) broken. Well, this is symptomatic of what is wrong with everything in Guyana. Rules are made here evidently just for the sake of making rules, since they’re immediately broken with impunity by folks from the very top; and, not surprisingly, the rest of society follows suit.
Take the farce at City Hall over the censoring of the Town Clerk on his amazing imitation of a tin-pot dictator. The same folks constituting the City Council – including the present Mayor –censored the previous town clerk with such abandon you’d think she was XXX-rated!! Yet, for the incumbent, they’ve suddenly had an epiphany that it can’t be done!! What does the man-in-the-street (or the bus driver to “South”) think?
But why stop at the mayor playing fast and loose with the law? Let’s go right to the source – the top of the political heap – the President of the entire Republic!! The Constitution of the land – the HIGHEST LAW!! — was explicitly changed to compel him to select the GECOM Chair from lists provided by the Opposition Leader. And what did he do? From the very beginning, he signalled he’ll do whatever he damn well pleases, based on his “perception” of who’s “fit and proper”! And then, after leading the Opposition down the garden path, he went and did exactly what he wanted in the first place!! To hell with the highest law of the land!!
So the bus drivers and every other Guyanese are just following in the footsteps of the President: going by their PERCEPTION of the law!! How loud you can play your music on the road or in your yard? Whatever your perception is, dude!! And ditto with how you drive on the road, or pay your taxes, or whatever.
Now, don’t get your Eyewitness wrong; he’s not EXCUSING the lawlessness that’s evident in every facet of national life, he’s merely EXPLAINING its genesis, so if we really want to get back to the straight and narrow, we know where we have to start —
Vote folks into office who’ll follow the law!!
…in “thiefin” utilities
The news that someone in Buxton set a GWI bus ablaze when a crew was disconnecting folks not paying for water as required by the law, doesn’t surprise your Eyewitness. It’s just another example of the “follow the leader” in crime syndrome explained above. And while “thiefin” of water and electricity is done in all communities, some figures released by GPL some time ago clearly demonstrated the highest percentage takes place in “PNC communities”.
Now while this “calling a spade a spade and not an ‘agricultural implement’” may offend some, we have to return to the source of the behaviour, so that we may rectify the same. Point of the matter is: from the moment it first started — the mass electrification in the country outside of Georgetown in 1968 – the PNC also decided to rig elections. Their supporters probably decided if their big ones could thief an election to live high off the hog, why can’t they steal some electricity and water to eke out a living?!!
Solution? No more rigging, and vote them out!!
…and “labour figures”
After spending two hundred million ($200,000,000) in just two surveys in six months, the Govt announced unemployment is 12%!! They said out of 550,831 employable persons, 277,068 are employed.
Ummm…isn’t that like 50% unemployed? We know there are pensioners and senior students, but 38%?
