Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 05, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
In this country, once a perversity is introduced, unless it is confronted and extirpated immediately, it festers, sinks into the collective mind of the nation, and by a weird, psychic contortion, a nation accepts an abnormality as a normal process of life.
It is impossible to curtail much less eradicate the minibus culture. It began when Guyana was making the transition from the upheavals of Burnhamite Guyana to the rule of Desmond Hoyte. Society had broken down. Public transportation was difficult to come by. The minibuses came, and Guyana has now to endure a crazy system on the roadways. Even in war-torn lands, you wouldn’t find the minibus culture of Guyana in another country on Planet Earth.
The envelope madness started at one specific commercial bank. That bank told its customers as proof of address, they have to present an envelope with the address on it and carrying the date stamp of the post office. This, the bank said, was the requirement of the anti-money laundering law. It was a terrible misdirection. The law clearly stipulated “credible, acceptable” proof of address. One such area is a vehicle fitness certificate from the police.
No one questioned that bank and told it that it was imposing a fiction on its customers. Then the thing spread like wildfire. All financial houses were demanding a post office envelope. Today such an absurdity is accepted as normal. Today, people have to show all commercial banks a stamped envelope. The law says otherwise, but the nastiness is now normal.
Now what is the difference between the minibus nastiness and the envelope nastiness? The minibus driver is a private person. He does his crazy driving and unless the police are there, he will get away with it. In the case of the envelope asininity, the government (through the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Guyana) has the authority to intervene. But it never did when the stupidity first raised its head. And all the years have passed and Guyanese still live with it.
We come now to noise nuisance. Two institutions have sought to eliminate this threat to society, the police and the Ministry of Public Security. But noise nuisance has a dirty class dimension in this land. Noise nuisance is only confronted when people without status and money are the perpetrators. So the police moved against the owner of Nicky’s Fish Shop and Seeta’s Bar. But some large companies are the biggest abusers. These companies and the big boys in government and the big boys in the police force meet at a confluence where cocktail glasses meet hors d’oeuvres.
The latest episode where big meets the mighty in a happy incestuous relationship was last Monday – Caricom Day. I did my Wednesday column on the six-hour open-air concert at MovieTowne car park, so no need to expand here. Does it not lacerate your nervous system to read about a concert of foreign artistes performing at a car park? The first question that comes to mind is, why not the Providence Stadium or the National Park?
GTT, which sponsored the six-hour show, told this columnist that permission was given by the police for the use of large speakers from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. the next morning. Here is where Guyana broke down a long time ago. It is the police that protect the citizenry from noise nuisance, but it is the police that allow large commercial companies to hold bacchanalian festivities in open air, right in the middle of large communities.
This parking lot concert thing started at Giftland. It has caught on like wildfire. MovieTowne is now into the action. But here is the thing. Giftland has not done it without police permission. GTT also told me it had police permission for last Monday’s fling. Banks DIH sponsors loud explosions in music, in areas where there are large urban communities. They get permission from the police.
How come they get these permits to create noise? I will answer that with a description of one the sickest manifestations of the social insanity this country is drowning in. Sand trucks and container trucks are not allowed on the roadways during peak hours. What this means is that the truck, which takes the sand from the Linden Highway cannot be seen in Georgetown after 6 a.m. The same for container trucks. The sand truck guys are small fishes that have to obey the law. Once found after 6, the police harass them. But at all hours of the day, you see the container trucks all over Georgetown. Why? Money talks over liquor and hors d’oeuvres at the cocktail circuit.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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