Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 12, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
In the eyes of the vendors being allowed to return to Stabroek Square, the President is benevolent. He came to their rescue when they needed him the most. He came through for them.
The vendors fail to appreciate that the President had no choice but to allow them back on the square because there is an un-discharged court order which grants permission for vending there from 6 am to 6 pm. That was a ruling by Justice Desiree Bernard.
In their haste to protest and rush to Congress Place, the vendors seemed to have forgotten that there was a legal remedy. It was a good thing they did, though, because their actions led to a solution, however imperfect and temporary.
The government reversed itself. And in the process, the President of Guyana emerged as a hero in the eyes of the vendors. He heard their cries, and he responded. This is what many of the vendors feel and there may be some truth to how they feel, but there is also a larger picture involved.
To understand this larger picture, the vendors need to consider some things. Firstly, they need to understand that this is an election year, where votes are important, and therefore decisions are going to be made with an eye on the forthcoming polls. The decision to allow the vendors back on the square may be in partial fulfillment of such considerations. Why in an election year would a sitting government, eligible for reelection, want to cause discontent within the electorate?
Secondly, it is doubtful that the initial decision, to remove the vendors could have been done without the knowledge of senior political functionaries. This could not have been a case in which a few Ministers decided on their own that they would bulldoze the structures. This is not how the present government operates. The decision to remove the vendors had to be sanctioned by senior political functionaries.
The government however came to its senses after it recognized that it would have been in violation of a court order if it did not reverse itself. This reversal, interestingly, follows a noted pattern. A decision is made and applied by Ministers. It causes deep distress in segments of the populace. The affected appeal to the President. He intervenes and reverses the decision. The people are happy again. The President is a hero, and the Ministers look bad.
A few years ago, some air traffic controllers were served with dismissal letters. They met the President at the airport and he later overturned their dismissals. They went back to work.
Then just awhile ago, the sugar company threatened to derecognise the sugar union because of its constant strikes. The union of the workers was furious. The workers were not pleased. The President then came out with a statement that this would never happen under his tenure. What we therefore have is a certain way in which things are done, and at the end of the day, the President ends up being the hero of the people.
But what about the poor Ministers and other officials who are made to look bad whenever their actions are reversed as in the case with the Stabroek vendors? What about them? They removed the vendors and dismantled some of the makeshift stalls. Now the vendors are going to return under strict supervision, but it still makes the initial decision look wrong.
Hopefully that style of governance will disappear this year, whoever is elected as President. A new style is needed, one in which matters are thoroughly thought through before any action is taken.
A new style of governance is needed to avoid what took place at Stabroek Square. The problem there is not a creation of the government. It is a creation of the Council that allowed a situation to develop that ought never to have existed in the first place.
If there was a need to remove the vendors, advance notice should have been given and some provision made for their relocation. It turns out that there was advance notice but the vendors ignored these. There are a number of unoccupied stalls in city markets and these could have been offered to the vendors.
Instead what has happened was ugly and traumatic for the vendors, some of whom watched in horror as their structures were bulldozed.
For some of them, life will return to normal. But for how long before the hammer eventually falls again?
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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