Keeping you updated on current events...
Friday June 4, 2021
ONLINE DAILY NEWSPAPER
GWI DECISION TO SACK WORKERS IS A DRIVE TO INCREASE INEFFICIENCY, ENCOURAGE Pg2 CORRUPTION
PRIME MINISTER WRITES SECOND LETTER TO PSC CHAIRMAN TO SHOW CAUSE CANU FINDS 80 KG GANJA IN CANE FIELD
Friday June 4, 2021
GWI DECISION TO SACK WORKERS IS A DRIVE TO INCREASE INEFFICIENCY, ENCOURAGE CORRUPTION
In light of the decision by Guyana Water Inc. to fire some 170 workers from the company, former Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Richard Van West Charles is seeking an explanation from the new management for such a move.
He said that the decision must go beyond just stating that the dismissal forms part of the “restructuring” aspect of the company’s operation. Speaking at a press conference on the issue, Dr. Van West-Charles noted that the company,
in the middle of the pandemic, has to explain in detail why over 170 workers are being placed on the breadline. This very staff was put in place by the previous management to fit a growing need for water, especially in the time of a pandemic. “The company who is the sole provider of water must be able to explain to the citizenry of this country how the service is going to be met with the staff, where the cuts are occurring, how the water quality is going to be maintained. “Show us, explain to us that you are going to maintain the service which is required. I challenge GWI presently to prove to me that they can sustain a service that is adequate to meet human needs, to meet human demands, and
to meet the demands of COVID-19 (society).” Over the past two weeks, GWI issued over 170 termination letters to some staff, as part of the “restructuring process”. The Chief Executive Officer said that the sacking is to reduce the cost of the company. This move has been met with widespread condemnation. Dr. Van West- Charles had insisted this move will clearly hamper the works of the company. It will not be providing good quality service to its customers since the staff that was hired during his stewardship provided technical support in various areas of expertise. This, according to Dr. Van West Charles, will now cost the country by way of not meeting
the demands of the sustainable development goal. That goal speaks to the provision of clean water for all and as such, this clearly shows mismanagement of the company. “This clearly shows; I’m going to be kind… inefficiency, lack of understanding of the objectives of the water utility and placing the country at risk at the time of COVID by way of reducing access to water across this nation. “They need to be called to the table and the president and the Cabinet need to ask GWI what foolishness are you doing in the light of COVID.” This Mr. Van West Charles said, cannot be a rational decision based on the fact that the service of quality water
is important, especially in these times. “You are attempting in the midst of COVID to go full blast ahead without addressing these matters. This cannot be a rational decision. It had to have other motives behind it. It cannot be a scientific decision or, an evidence-based decision. “It’s a decision that is devoid of analysis, a lack of understanding of the management of a water utility, and the basics for operation efficacy in terms of a water utility,” Dr. Van West Charles added He is of the opinion that the new management wants to put in place the old strategy, in which they will continue to outsource contractors, who are friends and family. This will cost more to the company.
PRIME MINISTER WRITES SECOND LETTER TO PSC CHAIRMAN TO SHOW CAUSE
Prime Minister Mark Phillips has written a second letter to Retired Assistant Commissioner Paul Slowe, calling on him to show cause why he should not be
removed as Chairman of the Police Service Commission. The letter dated June 1, 2021, accuses Mr. Slowe of siding with Coalition Member of
Parliament, Ganesh Mahipaul, to retain a battery of lawyers, all of whom are Coalition Members of Parliament. The Prime Minister names Roysdale Forde,
SC, Khemraj Ramjattan, Raphael Trotman, Geeta ChandanEdmond; Amanza Walton-Desir. Prime Minister Philips said that these lawyers have been retained to institute proceedings against the government. The Police Service Commission and its members are named as applicants, according to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister noted that the perception on the part of the public is that “the Commission and all its members have abandoned all appearances of impartiality and have joined forces with the Opposition politicians to engage in an open, partisan political contest with the government.” He said that the Constitution enjoins the Commission members to be free from actual
2
or perceived political bias, influence, and interference. “The joinder of the Commission and its members in these legal proceedings and their professed alliance with the political opposition renders you and the commission in breach of those constitutional duties. “Both the public and members of the Guyana Police Force have complained that you are no longer perceived to be free from political bias, impartial, independent, and autonomous.” Slowe has until June 8 to show cause. This confrontation between the government and Slowe began when the Special Organised Crime Unit moved to charge Slowe for fraud and sexual
harassment. Slowe, at a press conference, detailed reasons why the Commission failed to promote Fazil Karimbaksh who now heads the Special Organised Crime Unit; and Senior Superintendent Calvin Brutus who moved to the courts against the Police Service Commission. Slowe has since accused President Irfaan Ali of seeking to influence the decisions of the Police Service Commission. He has released details of episodes of the President attempting to do so through conversations with Slowe. There was a previous letter to which Slowe and Commission member Clinton Conway responded.
Friday June 4, 2021
CANU FINDS 80 KG GANJA IN CANE FIELD The Customs AntiNarcotics Unit (CANU) has unearthed some $10 M worth of Marijuana but has been left with no one to charge after three the suspect would have slipped through their hands. According to CANU in a release, ranks yesterday around 17:30 hours, while acting on information, proceeded to an area called Goat Dam at Line Path Corentyne. Their Officers carried out surveillance on the area looking for persons
who were supposed to be transporting several bags of suspected narcotics. After about some two hours the Officers noticed three individuals within the cane field walking towards them. The Officers then emerged from their position, identified themselves, and shouted out to the said individuals not to move. The said individuals decided to run through the cane field. The Officers did not pursue the individuals due to a canal separating the dam
past four days and the team is to be commended for the patience and professionalism displayed, seeing it through to the end, according to CANU Head, James Singh. It is suspected that these parcels were due to be transported to Suriname for resale. CANU also noted that working along with the GRA and Police, it will continue to carry out operations to stem the flow of narcotics across The CANU operation the borders. It said that it will also has been ongoing for the from the cane field. The officers then searched the area where the men were seen and noticed ten (10) bulky parcels wrapped in transparent plastic. Upon examining the parcels, the Officers noticed that the said parcels appeared to contain cannabis. The parcels were removed and taken for processing; they weighed 80 kilograms valued. That quantity is said to be worth some $10M.
work with Community Policing Groups in various communities to ensure that “drug blocks” do not become established.
FIU WARNS OF MONEY SCAM
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Guyana wishes to bring to the attention of the public, the existence of persons within Guyana who are actively involved with
international partners in the commission of what is referred to as “Package Delivery Scams or Romance Scams”. The Package Delivery or Romance Scammers have emerged more
prominently during the period of the COVID19 pandemic. This Scam specifically targets persons via several Social Media Platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and
WhatsApp. The methodology used by the Scammers is to befriend unsuspecting persons via the beforementioned digital platforms. After some time used
to build trust with their “new friend” or “love interest”, the scammer promises the intended victim, some form of assistance. This is most instances is supposedly a “package” containing valuable gift items such as designer clothing, jewelry, televisions, cell phones, and other electronic devices. The victim is usually contacted by a local associate of the scammer, confirming the arrival of the package and requesting their personal contact and other information. The intended victim is subsequently contacted again and requested
to deposit money to a specified local Bank Account or send via a money transfer agency (MTA). They advise that the payment is required to cover brokerage fees, customs duties, penalties, and/or shipping charges for the package(s), which was found on inspection to contain high valued items. Once the payment is made, the scammers discontinue all contact with the victim. In some instances, requests are made for additional payments, for various reasons which may sound plausible to unsuspecting individuals.
SOCIAL MEDIA TALK SHOW HOST ON BAIL OVER CHARLES RAMSON Social media talk show host, Gavin Matthews, who was arrested for causing emotional distress and humiliation to Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture Charles Ramson Jr was this morning placed on $100,000 bail. Mathews already on $100,000 station bail appeared with his attorney, Darren
Wade, before the Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan when the charge was read to him. Mathews was charged under the Cyber Act, in which it is alleged that he on March 25, 2021, without legal or lawful justification or excuse, used a computer system to publish electronically, data about Ramson with the intent to damage his
3
reputation and corrupt public moral. The allegation was denied by Matthews and bail was granted in the sum of $100,000. He was also ordered to return to court later this month for the continuation of his matter. Mathews who is said to be an outspoken critic of the Government was
arrested during a protest at the Square of the revolution, where it was indicated that was being arrested for causing emotional distress to the Minister during some utterance on his live Facebook show. Since then Mathews has denied any such accusation. He has said he does not even know the Minister personally.
WOMAN AWAKES TO FIND MAN AT HER BEDSIDE
A
young woman in her house besides her in Moruca Village, and the suspect was later Northwest District, woke caught. up with an alleged thief According to a police
report, it was just 19:25 About 23:00 hours hours that a young she woke up and saw the woman secured the suspect, a 24-year-old house and retired to bed. man next to her bedside.
She immediately jumped off the bed and raised an alarm. She then ran out of the house to her
uncle’s abode which is nearby and told him. The uncle accompanied by others went to the suspect’s house. The suspect tried to make good his escape but was restrained and bound. The Community Policing Group of Rincón Village was summoned and responded immediately. Its members arrested the suspect and escorted him to the Acquero Police Station. The suspect remains in custody
before Independence Guyanese waged a bitter civil war among themselves. They killed anyone who looked different; they destroyed property. Some people swapped homes. For two years the murder rate was higher than it could ever be today. People died by the dozens. They were clubbed to death or brutally chopped. Those were the conditions under which Guyana became independent. There is a saying that time heals all wounds. It has not healed the wounds in Guyana. Some of us watched squatter settlements grow up where there are now permanent and fancy homes. The squatters were the displaced residents from the villages. Segregation is still rife. There are villages of predominantly one ethnic
group. Georgetown is considered the melting pot but any inspection would reveal the gaps. Prior to independence people of African ancestry mimicked the colonial master. He became the teacher, the policeman, the post master and the engineer. He was also the doctor and the lawyer. The people of Indian ancestry also became the doctor, the teacher and the lawyer but overwhelmingly they tilled the land and made millions of dollars. They continue to be the farmers in predominant numbers. The sun will rise on Guyana 55 years after independence. Those who know where to look will see the scars of the violence of 55 years ago. There are many in Georgetown. And the scarred relationship between the people also remains.
INDEPENDENCE 55 YEARS LATE
ADAM’s Notebook
The people of Guyana woke up to the 55th anniversary of its independence on Wednesday. For most of the population this country became independent a very long time ago. Most of the people living on this land were not born so they don’t know anything about singing “God Save the Queen’ and waving the Union Jack. In fact, if one were to do a random quiz on the streets, less than 20 per cent of the people questioned would say what the Union Jack is. The few who were around would remember the visit by the Queen in February 1966. There was a big fair on what was then the BGCC ground. That is the ground adjoining the Queen’s College ground to the east. The Queen’s sister came to this country in 1962. What is now the National Park was the Queen Elizabeth Park. Many Georgetown people back then knew it as the golf ground. Go into the National Assembly and ask the members of Parliament to tell you something info@guyanapostonline.com
about their experience on Independence Day 1966. Very few would be able to. Robeson Benn, Juan Edghill, Joe Harmon, Gail Teixeira, and perhaps Khemraj Ramjattan would have some vague recollection. Bharrat Jagdeo would have none. In the run up to 1966, some of the ordinary people were afraid. They had grown up eating what the British sent to the colony. Some planted crops but for the greater part they fell in love with Irish or English potatoes—today we eat potatoes from Idaho in the United States. Canned sardines, salted fish or saltfish, apples which we called iceapples, grapes, walnuts and the likes still adorn our tables. Such was our dependence on these things. Salt beef and salt pork were imported. Today they are integral to the cook-up. Although one must say that we make our own salt fish, salt beef and salt pork. People nearly died when wheat flour was banned and when split peas was restricted. These are still imported products,
foisted on us by the colonial masters prior to independence. Most people would not know that the potato from those days were a far cry from the potatoes of today. They were harder and took an eternity to cook. That was because they had to be preserved in order to be shipped over long distances. It was the same with the split peas. People were also uncertain about the future. Most of the older folk felt that the colonial master was needed to manage just about everything. The Guyanese never realized that they were the ones doing the work under the supervision of the colonial master. There was a time before independence when people of African ancestry and those of Indian ancestry could not go to certain places. The Georgetown Club, Colgrain House, Watooka Club in Linden, the estate houses on the various sugar estates were just a few. There was segregation in sports. We had East Indian Cricket Club (later Everest), and
Chinese Cricket Club (later Cosmos). We also had Indian Educational Trust College. Guyana was Guyana. Today people complain about infrastructure. In the pre-independence days the road from Crane, West Coast Demerara, was burnt brick—not laterite-- all the way to Parika. After Boeraserie people had to put their vehicles on trains to reach Parika. On the East Coast, once one passed Ogle, the road was burnt brick and laterite. People made money burning logs to make bricks for the road. The locals worked side by side but they harboured a distrust of each other, instilled by the first rulers. If someone or something looks different it should be carefully examined or avoided. There were deep wounds. In the days
4
Vaccine refusal is as dangerous a pandemic as COVID-19
By Sir Ronald Sanders (The writer is Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States and the Organization of American States. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and Massey College at the University of Toronto. The views expressed are entirely his own) Vaccine refusal is fast becoming as dangerous to human health and to economies as the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, even before the novel coronavirus was confirmed and began its spread around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that vaccine refusals had led to a resurgence of diseases such as measles in countries that were close to eliminating them. The WHO identified vaccine refusal as one of the 10 leading threats to global health. At
that time, complacency, inconvenience in access, and a lack of confidence were said to be the driving factors for people’s refusal to inoculate against disease. Since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the problem has become worse and so widespread that a comprehensive approach by all governments and non-governmental organizations, globally, is now necessary to overcome it. Promoted on social media platforms by farright organisations and church groups in the U.S., the anti-vaccine propaganda has spread like wildfire, convincing persons at all levels of societies that they would either die from an inoculation or some harmful material would be injected into their bodies. Religious groups in the Caribbean, influenced by fundamentalist U.S. churches, also encourage
their followers not to vaccinate. Research done by the New York Times reported, on April 5, that “among evangelicals in the U.S., Pentecostal and charismatic Christians may be particularly wary of the vaccine, in part because their tradition historically emphasizes divine health and miraculous healing in ways that can rival traditional medicine”. Charismatic churches also attract followers in the Caribbean. The most popular social media platforms used by anti-vaxxers are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram which have all committed to banning anti-vaccine content. But, accounts on these platforms turn up as quickly as they are taken down. In turn, the propaganda, which includes fabricated videos purporting to show actual events, is communicated tens of thousands of times around the world on
WhatsApp. Governments and social media platforms, such as those named in this commentary, as well as organizations such as the WHO and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), must gather specialists together to find ways to counter the antivaccination propaganda campaigns and to strengthen educational progammes showing the benefit of vaccines. PAHO has started using Facebook to educate about the benefits of vaccines, but more effective communications techniques should be used, including dropping huge images of syringes and needles, that may be reinforcing reticence to inoculate. Groups of persons in many parts of the world, who decline to take the COVID-19 vaccine, now pose a risk to themselves and the people with whom they come into contact, especially their families. They also pose a risk to the opening-up of the economies of their countries. Data, gathered worldwide, shows that the claims of the anti-vaxxers, concerning detrimental effects of the vaccine, are wrong. Figures confirm that the COVID-19 vaccine prevents severe infection and deaths at astounding rates. Studies show that
in Israel for instance, vaccines prevented hospitalization among adults 65 and older by 94%. They also prevented symptomatic infection among healthcare workers by 97% and blocked severe disease by 97.4% in Qatar. Dr. Monica Gandhi, an Infectious-Diseases Specialist, and Professor of Medicine at The University of California at San Francisco, reports that serious infections among vaccinated individuals are extremely rare. She points out that “of over 115 million vaccinated Americans, only 0.0009% contracted severe COVID-19 after vaccination despite the virus continuing to circulate in their communities. As she concluded: “Vaccines truly defang the virus”. In the U.S. and Britain where (at the time of writing on 20 May) 48.09% and 55.49% of the populations have been vaccinated, data shows that vaccines also block transmission. People, who have been inoculated against the coronavirus, are rightly concerned that, despite their responsible action in taking the vaccine, irresponsible persons are asserting their right to refuse it. The question that has to be asked is: whose rights are greater? Are the rights to safeguard lives and livelihood less than the right to put lives
and livelihoods at risk by refusing to be vaccinated? This is not a moral dilemma; it is a commonsense question, deserving a common-sense answer. However, no answer is being attempted as individual governments and their health authorities shy away from the question for political reasons. No ruling political party wants to risk losing electoral support to its rivals on the back of an accusation of depriving people of their rights. Yet, when that right is upheld, it threatens others and entire societies. Just as measles has returned in countries where groups of people decline to be inoculated against it, COVID-19 will not be subdued or eliminated in countries where groups of people refuse to be vaccinated. This conflict must be tackled and resolved by global agreement and action. No one country can act alone. Maybe the answer lies in an intense education programme globally constructed, financed, and implemented. The mantra that “we’re all in this together” assumes a profound global relevance for maintaining life and sustaining livelihoods. Doing nothing is not a solution. The 74th World Health Assembly being held from May 24 to June 1, is the ideal place to start.
Unnecessary hassle at CJIA Dear Editor, On April 25, 2021, I was making the midnight Jet Blue trip to NY. In the departure lounge after clearing Immigration, and preparing to be screened, I had my second most horrifying experience with the screening technician. Because of a radiationrelated cancer surgery I had in 2007, I requested
a pat-down instead of using the x-ray machine. This request was denied, I was made to parade myself four times in and out of that machine with undue care from uncouth staff. As if this was not enough, CANU continued with the most degrading search on my personal effects. I am a septuagenarian; I was never involved in
transporting any illicit stuff, and would like to know why I am being targeted when attempting to depart Guyana. I would like Mr. Ramesh Ghir and the Civil Aviation Director to note my harassment. These people need to be trained. They are an embarrassment to Guyana. Traumatized citizen.
Email or text your letters to us, we would be happy to have publish them ExxonMobil Oil Rig
lendellnurse6995@gmail.com
adameharris@yahoo.com info@guyanapostonline.com info@guyanapostonline.com
6