Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 20, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
I read a published letter this week by a supporter of the PPP administration since 1992 on the horrible wait one of his employees endured at GPL. So painful was the lack of attendance that he called her to instruct her to get out of the waiting area. He further explained that he sent her back the next day, but as they say in common parlance, it was the same “buddups,” meaning the same thing all over again.
This gentleman got a taste of his party in office that has held power for the past twenty-two years. It is nature all over again – who feels it knows it. You never speak out against the boss that pinches the girls’ backside but one day he squeezes your arse and you shout down from the rooftop telling the whole world that he is a pervert. And if the world could yell back it would ask you where was your voice all this time.
Do you know how many persons have said to me – “Freddie, I now see how these people are,” meaning the PPP that they voted for. I hear these sentiments expressed to me all the time. In every instance it is a voice from a person that had experienced a grievous wrong from a governmental department. Our country would have had a future which we all could have enjoyed if we had opened our eyes long, long ago.
And to think of it, the PPP believes it could get back a parliamentary majority; if it can, then this country should be the subject of a Stephen King novel.
The man who penned that letter about GPL has no memory of what it is like at the Accident and Emergency Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital. And this is because I am absolutely sure none of his family members ever sought treatment there. If the letter-writer thinks the waiting is in vain at GPL, he should visit the A&E. You can bear the GPL foul-up for days. But you cannot bear the impossibility of the Georgetown Public Hospital because when you are dead, there is nothing to bear up. You are dead, that’s it! You die while waiting at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
I saw death while waiting at the Georgetown Public Hospital. My Chinese neighbour was robbed and shot. He died from internal bleeding while he waited for over fifteen hours at the Georgetown Public Hospital. And to think the Chinese Government never ever protested to the Guyana Government over this senseless death of one of its citizens. Give me the Americans any day. Had that happened to an American, a protest note would have been sent to the Guyana Government the next day with a demand for an explanation.
Here is a joke I would like to share. Two weeks ago, Moray House sponsored an evening of Eusi Kwayana and Father Malcolm Rodrigues in conversation. After the programme was over, CEO of the Georgetown Hospital, Michael Khan went over to where Eusi was sitting and produced a large number of books authored by Eusi to be autographed.
As Eusi signed away, I went over to Eusi and asked him to put the following words in one of the books; “To Mike Khan, and please improve the service of the Georgetown Hospital.” Eusi looked confused then he caught himself and began to laugh while Mike and I were laughing our heads off. It was a joke, but there was a Freudian motive in me. I believe the Georgetown Hospital is an indictment of the total failure of the PPP as a party in government.
Did the gentleman that penned that criticism of GPL live under the regime of Forbes Burnham? If he did, he would be honest to admit that in 1980 onwards the Burnham Government ran out of money; foreign exchange dried up. The public utilities were not performing. The lines at the GPL were long and winding. Those exact lines can be seen at the GPL today, as one of the PPP’s biggest supporters wrote in the newspapers this week.
The question that every decent person must ask is why is this so in 2014 with a government that has hundreds of billions of dollars, when Burnham didn’t even have millions?
The answer is politics. I have never seen less than three tellers serving about ten persons at the GT&T bill counter. That is the truth. When the crowd builds up, two more tellers come on board. The uncivilized lines at the GPL and the Georgetown Public Hospital will remain because we as a nation will remain stupid after 48 years of Independence. And we will wait forever for modern life to come to Guyana.
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