Keeping you updated on current events...
Saturday Oct. 30, 2021
ONLINE DAILY NEWSPAPER
HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR A DAY
Pg2
LIFESTYLE CHANGES CAN PREVENT BREAST CANCER …UNLESS THERE IS A GENETIC INVOLVEMENT
Pg2
PRISON SERVICE Pg3 MOURNS PASSING OF FORMER PRISON OFFICER
Saturday Oct.30, 2021
HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR A DAY
PRISON SERVICE MOURNS PASSING OF FORMER PRISON OFFICER
Ms. Corissa McClure, who operated in the capacity as the ‘High Commissioner for the Day’.
Yesterday the High Commission of Canada was led by Ms. Corissa McClure, who operated in the capacity as the ‘High
Commissioner for the Day’. The event was the celebration of the International Day of the Girl 2021. In her capacity as the
High Commissioner, Ms. McClure had a day filled with meetings and other engagements with CARICOM, the diplomatic community
and the Women’s Leadership Institute as she used the platform to advocate for gender equality in Guyana and the Caribbean.
LIFESTYLE CHANGES CAN PREVENT BREAST CANCER …UNLESS THERE IS A GENETIC INVOLVEMENT
Doctor Suddhasattwa Ray
As Guyana uses the month of October to spread awareness of Breast Cancer, the Guyana Cancer Institution is urging women to stay away from certain types of contraceptives. They should also adopt a healthy lifestyle to avoid being diagnosed with Cancer. This is according to Doctor Suddhasattwa Ray, who maintains that Breast Cancer at times can be avoidable, except for when it’s genetically passed. As such women must love a healthier lifestyle to break the cycle of having breast cancer. “There also lifestyle factors involved like alcohol, obesity, lack of exercise, and a dense breast. It is quite common here I see…Dense breasts
also lead to cancer and these lifestyle factors can be changed, or can be controlled. “There are certain other things like oral contraception and hormone replacement therapy. These give extra estrogen to our body. Estrogen causes breast cancer or is one of the triggering factors for breast cancer. “So, I think that these are all here and in breast cancer month what we are trying to say is change the lifestyle and best as possible.” Dr. Ray advised that people should use some other forms of contraceptives in order not to fall into the trap of having breast cancer. In Guyana, Women are seven times more likely to get breast cancer and also ovarian cancer which are common around women at the age 30 to 50 years or 30 to 70 years in that age group to breast cancer. “The main causative factor in this country, I feel, is genetics where your mother, or your grandmother, or your
maternal grandmother, aunt, or your sister can have breast cancer. Your chances increase by. He said that a lot of folks can fight the battle and win once they follow what’s recommended to live a healthy life, as with breast cancer you have a higher chance of living. “Certain cancer lifestyle helps; certain cancer lifestyle doesn’t help. Breast cancer is one of those cancers. For example, if you are smoking you can catch lung cancer. It is not that because you smoke you will have but there is a chance, there is a high chance. “If you have other factors there, it’s a triggering factor. Not all cancer is lifestyle dependent but breast cancer, to some effect, is lifestyle dependent” To be safe, however, Dr. Ray said it best to be screened for cancer and to ensure that it is not genetically passed on from another family member. “Cancer is still a taboo, a social taboo, and they don’t want their names
to be disclosed. This is what I found and it is a social taboo. People think cancer is a communicable disease; it can be communicated from one person to another. “In reality, it is not a communicable disease like COVID or influenza or any such infection. It would be limited to the person and will not spread from them. Genetically, it cannot spread from the daughter to the mother, it is not infectious” Breast Cancer and other cancer diagnoses would normally be done outside of the jurisdiction and the result takes about 10 days to return. This Dr. Ray says that is normal in developing countries. There is hope that those technologies would be available to get the work done a bit faster. In Guyana over the past year, the Cancer Institute has diagnosed some 40 patients with breast cancer, which represents eight fewer patients from last year.
2
former Prison Officer Roxanne Winfield.
The Guyana Prison Service (GPS) is mourning the loss of former Prison Officer Roxanne Winfield. The 58-year-old, Winfield died on Thursday (October 28, 2021), at the Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal from severe lung and Kidney complications. Ms Winfield had 29 years of service before she was shot in her right eye when five notorious highprofile criminals made a bloody escape from Camp Street Jail on February 23, 2002. At the time of the incident, Winfield was performing gate duty at the Camp Street Prison. Thereafter, Winfield was declared medically unfit to function as a prison officer and was being cared for at home. Winfield has been praised for her ‘heroic’ actions by Director of Prison (ag) Nicklon Elliot,
who said it was clearly heroic what she did on that day. “She did her job and she did exactly what we would expect from a prison officer. Winfield who was on gate duty at the time, attempted to lock the gates as the escapees approached her, but unfortunately, she was shot,” Elliot said. Mr. Elliot expressed sincere and deepest condolences on behalf of the Guyana Prison Service, to the family, friends, and colleagues of Officer Winfield. He also sent prayers that all those grieving Winfield’s death will be granted comfort during this difficult and trying period. The 2002 Jailbreak saw the escape of Troy Dick, Shawn brown, Andrew Douglas, Mark Fraser, and Dale Moore. All of them have since died.
ONE GETS THREE-YEAR JAIL TERM, CO-ACCUSED REMANDED FOR COCAINE
Three days after ranks from the Customs AntiNarcotics Unit (CANU) swooped down on the home of well-known suspected, drug trafficker Andre Gomes aka Zipper, and caught him along with another man with over four pounds of cocaine, the two appeared in court today. Joseph was slapped with a three-year jail sentence while his coaccused was remanded to prison. The two, 33-year-old Eon Joseph, and now 60-year-old Gomes, called
Zipper, appeared before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan today. The two on October 26, last, at Craig Street, Campbellville, had in their possession two kilograms of cocaine. Zipper pleaded not guilty to the charge. However, Joseph took the rap for the bust and was slapped with a three-year jail sentence along with a $3.1 million fine. The two were represented by Attorney at law, Stand Dhurjon. In an application for bail for Zipper, Mr. Dhurjon said that the 60-year-old while being accused of similar crimes, was never convicted.
Attorney Dhurjon went on to note that Zipper is the only breadwinner of the family and is an outstanding member of the community It was further explained that on the day in question, Joseph went to sell Zipper the product but the 60-year-old refused. It was then that he was arrested along with Joseph. Dhurjon said that his client never confessed to anything and had maintained his innocence. The Prosecutor however objected to bail based that the fact that Zipper is no stranger to the court. According to a prosecutor, on the day
in question, CANU, acting on information went to the area and saw the transaction while mounting surveillance. The Prosecutor said Gomes while being in the process of buying the drugs was caught along with the other defendant. However, in an explanation to the court, Joseph first said that he was very sorry for his action and only went to sell the drugs because he was told by some men that he would make a lot of money since he is currently poor. Joseph explained that as such, he went ahead with the transaction and later was caught in a car close
to the home. Making a decision following the guilty plea, Chief Magistrate slapped Joseph with the three-year
jail sentence, and Zipper was remanded to prison until the coming month when he will make his next court appearance.
Fire service saves Post Office after arson attack
evening and was The Guyana Fire alerted to a fire at the Service received a call Charlestown Post Office at 21:08 PM Tuesday located at High Street,
eastern wall on the ground floor and three meters of the eastern and southern walls on the top floor were damaged as a result of the fire. A guard hut was also completely destroyed as a result of the fire. The supposed cause is a malicious setting by a person (s) unknown. The Guyana Fire Service is once again reminding citizens that there are harsh penalties to arson Ruimveldt Fire Station contain the fire and save attached Georgetown. attacks and once caught immediately responded the two-story wooden Water tenders 76, 105, perpetrators will face and concrete building. and 107 from the Central to the scene. the full brunt of the law. They were able to Two meters of the Fire Station and West
3
SOME FACTS CANNOT BE DISPUTED
Adam’s
note book
Many years ago I was a teacher. In fact, that was my first job. It started way back in 1966. I entered the Government Teachers Training College in 1967 majoring in Chemistry and Physics. From time to time I was required to teach Mathematics when the teachers were not there. It was an exciting period in my life. It took at least three years to prepare children for the external examinations. I taught at the Bartica Government Secondary School, the only Grade B Secondary School to prepare and secure passes in Physics and Chemistry at the GCE O’ Levels to this day. Grade B Schools were expected to prepare children for Integrated Sciences. In those days, children
wrote the General Certificate Examinations commonly referred to as GCE. This year there were praises for those children who did remarkably well at the Caribbean Secondary Examinations and CAPE. These examinations have replaced the GCE O’ Levels and A’ Levels. I saw some Facebook posts, one by Education Minister Priya Manickchand. I merely posted whether credit should not go to the Coalition. I got no answer. When the Coalition came to office in 2015 there was a focus on the education system. I am not going to go into the figures that highlighted how poorly Guyana was performing when compared to the other Caribbean territories.
This year Guyana was the best-performing country. The results of these recent examinations reflected the four years of preparation under a modified and upgraded school system. However, there was no mention of this. Instead, there was talk about the Coalition doing nothing during its term in office. Then I saw the performance by the children at the Grade Six Assessment Examinations. Way back in the 1990s when Wilfred Success was a teacher at West Ruimveldt Primary School he secured some astounding results. That school secured six children in the top ten. The noise was deafening. Most of the people in the country claimed that Wilfred Success cheated; that
he had procured the examination papers in advance and had drilled the children. The reality is that he continued to produce top-performing children to the point that parents now seek him out. He has opened his private school. This year, again he got astonishing results. Only this time nobody claimed that he had cheated. He got four in the top ten and would be sending nearly two dozen children to Queen’s College. Indeed, there is the maxim that if the children have not learned, the teachers have not taught. Wilfred Success is a teacher and he has employed other teachers. The public schools did the best they could, bearing in mind that during this pandemic many parents, ordinary people, could not afford computers, did not have access to the internet and therefore could not get their children to attend online classes. There were 13,000 who wrote the exams. No more than 1,300 would go on to good secondary schools. Again, we should understand that many of the parents are not academically inclined so they did not give their children the needed attention and supervision. But many of these children did well under the circumstances. They
deserve congratulations. And there were some other things that caused raised eyebrows. Former Assistant Commissioner Paul Slowe was out of the country when SOCU laid charges for some incidents dating back to 2019. Heaven knows why those charges have surfaced only now. However, while Slowe was doing his job with the West Indies Cricket Board the charges were laid but not read to him. By way of a summons sent to Attorney at Law Nigel Hughes last week, he was informed that he needed to attend court. And that he did. When he was in the court four SOCU ranks decided that they should arrest him. If a man is in court to answer charges that have to be read to him and there was no arrest warrant, on what ground can he be arrested? The truth is that the authorities wanted to have him appear in court with handcuffs and shackles for no other reason than to embarrass him. He knows his rights and he resisted, causing the ranks to assault him. There have been criticisms of this episode from lawyers and former magistrates. There has been total silence from the Attorney General. This episode lends support to the widely held belief that the government is using the
police to harass and to embarrass those who dare to comment on its wrongdoings. It suspended the Police Service Commission as a means of preparing its own list of police promotions. Then the Attorney General files to the court for the move by the Police Service Commission to challenge the government’s refusal to recognize the PSC list of promotions, be struck out because the commission has been suspended by the government. He argues that there is no commission to represent the action. We’ll see where that argument goes. The other thing that bothered many people was the fact that a man, Colin Bailey, spent almost six years in jail on a murder charge when the police had no evidence to hold him. He was freed by the judge who questioned the fact that the matter reached the high court although there was no evidence against Colin Bailey. And while in jail, Bailey suffered a heart attack and contracted COVID. I have approached the DPP to explain how such a thing could happen. There were too many checks and balances. I am awaiting her response.
Speeding minibus kills pedal cyclist The family of a 47-year-old cyclist is now mourning the loss of their loved one after he was struck down by a minibus on his way home on Strangroen Public Road, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara. The dead man has been identified as a pedal cyclist, Seebaran Dhankumar, a resident of North Public info@guyanapostonline.com
Road, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara. According to reports coming from the police, the incident occurred just around 18:00 hours on Tuesday. Dhankumar met his demised after minibus BTT 3832 driven by Surujpaul Bissoon, 61, of Novar, Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara was
4
proceeding east along the said road, allegedly at a fast rate of speed. Bissoon claimed that at the time he saw the pedal cyclist, cycling in front of him on the northern side of the road when the cyclist suddenly changed direction and ended up in his path. He added that he then applied brakes to avoid a
collision, but despite his efforts, he collided with the pedal cyclist. The 47-year-old cyclist was then picked up and taken to the Mahaicony Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival by a doctor. The driver remains in police custody.
Faulty electric point causes fire scare at NIS head office
Days after the Brickdam Police Station went up in flames, National Insurance Scheme (NIS) went on high fire alert and called in the Guyana Fire Service after an overloaded loaded switch started to smoke on Monday.
operations started to change the damaged points. Later when everything was under control, some staff operating in the affected area were told to take the rest of the day off, as power was expected to
The NIS was said to be the third fire emergency call for the day. There was another at the Guyana Post Office. Speaking to the media after the incident, the Divisional Commander of the Guyana Fire Service (GFS), Hemchandra Persaud, said that with such high fire risk the GFS remains on high alert also. “We have seen an increase in calls especially from (Monday). We had three calls. We would have responded to the GPO, NIS, and a bridge in Campbellville where there was a rubbish fire lit by someone.
that GFS due to the high risk has also shifted its approach due to high-level risk. “We are going to raise the level of preparedness; we are at the drawing board right now with senior officers knowing that we had a serious fire at the Brickdam Police Station. Of course, in life, we have to go through the vicissitude of life and there are always changes that we have to adapt to. “So, we are working as it is right now to look at our resource and to see what necessary we need, especially in this point in time, when we
According to the Guyana Fire Service, just before midday, in the Office of the General Manager, Holly Greaves, an electrical point started to smoke. The fire service responded with three fire trucks, an ambulance, and the ranks from Guyana Police Force. On arrival on the scene, firefighters explained that a point in the room was indeed smoking. With the aid of the policemen and women, the building was cleared of staff and others. With smoke still emanating from the point, prompted the shutting off the power to the building, they quickly tackled the affected area and the situation was quickly brought under control. The police also indicated that later the NIS Electrical Engineer quickly took over and
out for some time. The police advised the NIS to check the entire power supply chain to ensure that the problem does not occur again. The police also with safety in mind, to avoid a recurrence of the Brickdam Police Station fire a fire tender was left on standby.
“That fire was extinguished by the Campbellville units at GPO because it’s a high-rise building, it’s a Government building with lots of occupants. We would have sent a full response so that nothing got out of control,” Mr. Persaud explained. Mr. Persaud added
have a very hot weather and of course what is unfolding currently we have to first start thinking ahead and anticipate any eventuality.” This comes as the President, Mohammed Irfaan Ali blasted the GFS on its preparedness for the Brickdam Police Station fire.
5
Guyana to release CSEC, CAPE and NGSA results by Oct. 15.
The Ministry of Education announced on Saturday, that the Caribbean Examination Council has chosen Guyana as the host country to ‘release’ this year’s CAPE and CSEC results on October 14, 2021. In addition, NGSA is expected to be released on October 15; with raw exam scores coming from Barbados. The Caribbean Examination Council’s (CXC) Caribbean Secondary Education Certification (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) were written during June -July this year. The examinations were written at a later date this year due to the effects, consequences, and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Caribbean and the world. The Ministry of Education announced on Saturday, that the Caribbean Examination Council has chosen Guyana as the host country to ‘release’ this year’s CAPE and CSEC results on October 14, 2021. These results will be available to candidates on the CXC’s online portal from October 15, 2021. The National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) was equally affected by the pandemic and was written on August 4-5 of this year. Since 2016, CXC was contracted by the Government of Guyana to develop, administer and mark this examination/assessment annually. This year to further
advance the transparency and integrity of the examination/assessment, CXC’s responsibilities were extended and increased to include verification of raw scores. Additionally, to conduct and manage all reviews or appeals after the results are published and further to present the data and analysis of each year’s assessment. The Ministry of Education has been informed by CXC that the raw scores will be ready and sent from Barbados to Guyana by Tuesday, September 28, 2021, after which the National Data Management Authority (NDMA) will standardize the scores and offer placements according to the scores, and print results’ slips. In addition, from this year: 1. NGSA candidates will NOT be penalized with their raw scores because they were older than 12 years 6 months at the end of March of the year, the examination was written. 2. The standardized scores per subject will be rounded up to the nearest whole number and the TOTAL score will be given as a decimal number thereby offering candidates more fairness. The Education Ministry also encourages this year’s NGSA, CSEC and CAPE candidates to return all textbooks and resource materials to their respective schools. Failure to do so may result in being unable to access results
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
6